Altitude
by Hedgewitchery
Summary: DN, same AU as Scientist King, with plot, fluff and humour. Daine and Numair visit the beautiful Rocky Mountains in Canada and have an interesting, but not life threatening, adventure. FINISHED.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **In this fic, which is a sort of sequel to _Scientist King_ (it takes place about 2 years later), Daine and Numair travel from mistywabbit's home town to mine. It starts off kind of angsty, but will get funnier later. Also, Daine may seem really out of character in this chapter, but that's quite deliberate and was kind of necessary.

**Disclaimer:** Tamora Pierce invented all the people mentioned in this chapter, and the names of the animals are borrowed from her work as well. The plot (well, most of the plot) and nearly all the words belong to me.

**

* * *

Chapter 1: Edinburgh, April**

Numair Salmalín swung down from his bicycle and walked the machine in through the front gate of a large whitewashed cottage in the village of Swanston. It was a mild Tuesday in late April, and the five-mile ride from the University of Edinburgh campus had been pleasant enough, but he was tired and rather sweaty and looking forward to a cold drink and a clean shirt.

Stowing his very large shoes and the bicycle helmet his wife insisted he wear in the closet in the entry, he became aware of a profound silence and a worrying absence of wagging tails, furry bodies and large pink tongues. This was puzzling. He had seen the car outside in the drive, and Daine's bicycle had been leaning against the wall beside the door when he put his own there; she must be home already (if, indeed, she had ever left). She might have taken the dogs for a walk, true, but in that case why were all the cats not mobbing him in expectation of food and ear scratching?

"Daine?" he called. "Sweetheart, are you home?"

There was no reply, and the silence seemed to deepen. Numair shivered. "Mammoth? Mangle?" he tried again, as he walked through the silent downstairs rooms (no sound from the radio or the CD player; no cooking smells from the kitchen), and finally, as a last resort, "Spots! Cloud! Griiifff-in!"

Still no answer of any sort.

Anxious now, dreading what he would find, he climbed the stairs to the upper floor. The small study he shared with Daine (scrupulously tidy and organized, in sharp contrast to the rest of their house) was silent and empty, and no sound of shower or lavatory came from the bathroom. Finally, reaching the back of the house, Numair quietly opened the door to the bedroom.

"Oh," he said softly, feeling helpless and hating the feeling.

He had found Daine, and he had found the dogs and the cats. They were awake—the cats snuggled in around her, purring soothingly, Mammoth sprawled alongside her like a huge furry pillow, little Mangle alert and on guard at the foot of the bed. She was sleeping, her face blotched and swollen from weeping and (he was gripped by a spasm of love and pity) her thumb in her mouth.

It was hardly the first time he had seen her like this, but the experience seemed to hurt more every time. These days he scarcely bothered to wonder what had triggered it; the number of things that could send her into a downward spiral seemed nearly endless. Perhaps some colleague at the Zoo had announced she was pregnant (or, worse, pregnant _again_); perhaps one of the animals had had a difficult delivery, or rejected its offspring; perhaps she had simply passed too many voluminously pregnant women or too many babies in prams in the street today.

The whole situation mystified and depressed him. One would not think, to see Daine like this, that she was in fact a capable, intelligent twenty-seven-year-old woman with not one but two responsible jobs, nor that she could walk all day with a forty-pound pack or cycle up a forty-five-degree incline; one would not think that she had bravely faced down events and circumstances that would have driven most people to the brink of nervous breakdown. She looked, at the moment, like nothing so much as a miserable, untidy teenager who had cried herself to sleep over some half-imagined emotional wound. For days, sometimes weeks, at a time she was her usual cheerful and practical self, level-headed and teasing and apparently happy; and then, without warning, the black mood would descend, and nothing he could do seemed to alleviate it.

Of course he did everything he could. He held her while she cried; he coaxed her to eat, made her milky tea and wrapped her in blankets on the sofa, did her chores for her and rang the Zoo and the University to explain that she was ill; in bed at night, he opened his arms to her when she seemed to want that, and kept his hands strictly to himself when she did not. They had been to doctors, had tests, been told that nothing was wrong with either of them and counselled to have patience. He listened and reassured; he ran interference with well-meaning friends and acquaintances; he resolutely pushed away the traitorous thought, _She didn't always feel like this; having each other was enough for both of us, once. We used to be happy together._

He coped, somehow or other. What other choice was there?

And eventually, half a day later, a day or two days (on one distressing occasion, four), she would wake in the morning looking confused, eat an enormous breakfast, and go on as though nothing had happened.

It wasn't that he didn't want the same thing she did. Though he had never given much thought to children (or to marriage, come to that) before her, the idea of _their_ children, once started, had become dear to him—the more so because it meant so much to her.

But this—this black misery and helplessness—nothing could be worth this, could it?

* * *

It had all begun, of course, with that disastrous trip to the bioterrorism conference. Before, their life together had been happy and relatively unremarkable; they had not (at least, _he_ had not) given much thought to the future, except to be happy that they would be spending it together. But after that nightmare experience, everything had been different. They had grown closer than ever, and that was good; she had finally known, and forgiven him for, all the unpleasant things he had been afraid to tell her about his younger self, and that was good, too. But they had been responsible (albeit indirectly) for more than one death; they had feared for their own lives, and for each other's; they had descended briefly but rapidly into something very like hell. For months afterward they had suffered from nightmares, and every goodbye was irrationally difficult and fearful; their mobile-phone bill quadrupled because one of them was ringing the other every hour, _just in case_. 

Six months after that trip, Daine's friends Miri and Evin had produced a bouncing baby boy. Daine and Numair had taken a weekend drive down to Salisbury to inspect little Nathan, and the sight of her expertly cradling the tiny, squirming bundle of arms and legs and pudgy cheeks, cooing softly at it until it stared, fascinated, into her eyes, had done something to him that he couldn't quite explain. And then she had handed _him_ the baby and, instead of laughing at his considerably less competent handling, had smiled at him indulgently and said, "Don't worry, 'Mair—you'll learn."

That night, back in their room at a local bed-and-breakfast, they had looked out her packet of pills and ceremoniously flushed the remaining five "reminder" ones down the loo.

They had been happier than ever, at first, dreaming and planning and having playful arguments about what to name their baby and where to send it to school. Now, more than a year later, he hesitated even to bring the subject up. He thought sometimes that this hurt most of all: the idea that, after all they had been through together, a topic existed that the two of them could not discuss.

* * *

Now, more immediately, he wondered what to do. _If I wake her now, the beasties will berate me, and she'll probably cry all evening. But if I don't, she'll be awake all night and we'll both be hopeless in the morning._ Neither prospect was particularly appealing. In fact, if he were honest with himself, what Numair mostly wanted to do was shoo the cats and dogs off the bed and curl up beside Daine himself. 

But sooner or later everyone would be hungry, and the dogs would need to be let out, and there were papers to be marked and page proofs to be corrected and washing-up to be done and a stack of post to be opened, and someone would have to look after it all.

So, instead, he leaned over the cats, kissed his wife's cheek, and gently squeezed her shoulder. "Sweetheart," he said softly, "Daine, wake up."

She stirred; her eyes opened briefly, then closed again, and she settled back into sleep. His hand still on her shoulder, he shook her gently. "You'll miss supper," he coaxed. "Come on, love. Wake up."

This time she opened her eyes properly and shifted to look in his direction. Seeing him, she smiled and put up her arms for a hug, and for a moment he thought it would all be all right. Then, as suddenly as a cloud blowing across the sun, the smile faded and her face went shuttered and blank. The cats glared at Numair, and Mangle leapt melodramatically from the bed and stalked off.

Leaning down, he gathered her into his arms and lifted her from the bed like a child. Her arms went round his neck, but she wouldn't meet his eyes. "I'm here now, love," he whispered into her hair. "It'll be all right, I promise." Even as he spoke the words he wondered what was wrong with him, to be making such a rash promise. But surely … surely everything _would_ be all right, eventually. Something would happen; they would find a solution, somehow. Together.

"I'm here," he repeated. "You'll be all right, sweetheart."

By way of an answer, Daine clung to him ever more tightly as he carried her down the stairs.

* * *

"What was it this time?" he asked her gently, as she picked at rice and stir-fried mixed vegetables in peanut sauce on the other side of the table in the back garden. Sometimes—occasionally—if he could draw her out, persuade her to talk (not about the root problem, never that, but about the proximate trigger, whatever it had been), the mood seemed to pass a little faster. _Or, more likely, it makes no difference, and I only do it because the silence is so unnerving._

"I read an article," she said, almost inaudibly.

He waited for her to continue; when she didn't, he prompted, "What did it say?"

There was a long pause, then, "That women experience a significant decline in fertility after age twenty-seven. Someone did a study, in America."

He sighed and reached across the table to squeeze her hand. "Statistics like that don't necessarily mean anything for any individual person, love," he pointed out, in his most reasonable voice. "You're still so young—"

Daine yanked her hand away. "Numair, _I'm_ twenty-seven!" She hurled the words at him like some sort of accusation.

"I do know that," he replied mildly. "Where was this study published?"

"_Human Reproduction,_" she admitted, with some reluctance.

He quirked an eyebrow at her. "Professional reading?"

"Not exactly." She seemed to be growing annoyed with him, and, perversely, he was glad of it: anything was better than the shell-shocked blankness he had come home to. Of course he loved Daine in all her moods—it was impossible to imagine not loving her, or loving her less than completely—but when the blackness took her he _missed_, sometimes with a desperate intensity, the playful and determined and staunchly practical woman he had fallen in love with all those years ago.

"Sweeting, I really think—"

"Don't you _dare_ tell me I just need to relax!" she half-shouted. "If _one more person_ tells me to just relax and let Nature take its course I'll—I'll—"

She turned away and burst into tears.

"Who's been saying such things?" Numair knelt beside his wife's chair and let her sob against his shoulder. Thinking, _How many people has she told? _He hadn't told anyone at all, out of some sort of idiotic male pride, he supposed, though he knew most of their friends must have guessed what was going on.

Daine sniffled. "Just … people," she said indistinctly. "It's what everyone says. Stop thinking about it. Stop trying so hard. Someone told me I'm under too much stress in my job, and I ought to give up working and stay at home and relax."

He couldn't help chuckling at this. "Someone who doesn't know you very well, I presume."

Incredibly, she raised her head and gave him a tiny smile. "You presume correctly, Professor." The smile faded. "I'm so sorry, 'Mair," she said, sounding hopeless. "I know I've been horrid lately. I don't mean to be, it's just …"

Sitting back on his heels on the flagstones, he put a long finger to his lips. "Don't," he said. "You needn't." They had been friends for nearly eleven years, lovers for eight, married for five—did she really think he might expect her to apologize for something she couldn't help?

Still, they were talking about it, after a fashion, and the world hadn't ended. This, surely, was progress of a sort.

"I love you," she whispered.

"And I love you, dear one," he replied, dropping a kiss on her forehead as he got to his feet. "Now, eat up while I fetch the post. There's an enormous envelope from Canada addressed to you, and I'm most anxious to see what's in it."

* * *

"Calgary?" Numair inquired, perplexed. "Isn't that that place on the Isle of Mull where we camped on the beach and counted eagles?" 

"It's also a city in Canada, apparently," Daine said. "With a 'world-class' zoo. And a university that's opening a new vet school."

He studied her as she studied the sheaf of papers from the large, official-looking University of Calgary envelope. She still looked tired and strained, but her absorbed expression and a certain set of her shoulders told him that something in the letter genuinely interested her. Even better, while reading it she had absent-mindedly eaten nearly half her supper.

"This is very funny," she said after a few minutes, looking up at him, bemused. "Peculiar, I mean. They want to offer a zoological and wildlife medicine programme, and they want me to come there and help them plan it. Expenses paid. For two weeks in July. _Me_."

"Well, of course you," Numair countered. "You are an acknowledged expert in the field, are you not?"

"_You're_ the famous one."

"Ah, but I am just a common or garden genius." She made a face at him, and he hid a smile. "_You_ are the one and only Beast Whisperer."

"But I don't know anything about planning curriculum," Daine argued. "The Dick School hasn't even _got_ a course like that—not a proper one. I did all those externships through the Zebra Foundation, and went round with you doing wildlife things, and volunteered at the Zoo—"

"I'm sure there will be other people with expertise in curriculum planning. They want you because you understand things other people don't. And you might learn a great deal, too. One ought to take every opportunity to learn new things, you know, vetkin."

She frowned. "You talk as though I were actually going to do this."

"Aren't you? It sounds a fascinating exercise. Not to mention the offer to pay your way to Canada, which—"

"But … but they want me to come for _two weeks_, 'Mair. I can't—it would be—"

He didn't let her finish. "We'll both go," he said firmly. "When do we start?"

She gaped at him.

"I mean it," he added. "We haven't had a proper holiday in—in forever. We never had a proper honeymoon, for that matter. We ought to—"

"Of course we had a honeymoon," Daine objected. "Neither of us did any work for a _week_ after we got married." She paused. "Well, nearly a week. Well … three or four days, at any rate."

"Q.E.D.," Numair said triumphantly. "Clearly, we need a holiday."

"What about the beasties? Onua can't look after them then—she was just telling me yesterday that she'll be abroad most of this summer."

"Young Aly can come and house-sit. She'll do fine—even Griffin likes her." There was an accusing yowl from the afore-named marmalade cat, who had taken up a station under the table while they were talking.

"And can we really afford to pay your way there?" Inwardly, he crowed with delight at her dry tone.

"We'll work something out," he said. "Stop eating takeaways—swear off petrol for the next two months. We're not paupers, you know, we only think we are because we both grew up that way. Now, how much holiday do the Zoo owe you?"

She shrugged. "A few weeks," she admitted grudgingly. "Four or five. Maybe ... maybe six."

"Splendid." Numair rubbed his hands together in the manner of one preparing to get down to work. "Now, July, you said? When in July?"


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Wow, thanks for all the reviews:) Here is chapter 2.

**lucid.dreams** -- Thanks:) Yes, I am, though I don't live there now (I haven't lived there full-time for more than 10 years, actually, so any horrid inaccuracies you spot, please tell me!). I don't know if I can work Edmonton in here, but it would certainly be fun (I've always secretly wanted to write a story in which somebody falls asleep in one Jubilee Auditorium and wakes up in the other one and can't believe the weirdness ...). Any zoo/wildlife-related things they might want to see there? ;)

**lyradaemon** -- Thanks:) Too bad, but hey, Toronto is nice too. (Too bad about the Oilers...) Anyway, you'll get to go there in this story!

**Alanna22039** -- not quite. Opposite problem, actually. But read on. ;)

**Daine's daughter **-- Glad you liked :). You were supposed to be kind of confused in that chapter, because Numair is, and it's his POV. Hopefully things are clearer now ;).

**jessica.schultz** -- I responded privately also, but thanks for the review!

**Shining Silver Leaf** -- Thanks :)

**Tawnykit --** happy to see you, too:) Your theory on what will help is exactly the same as Numair's. Let's see how it goes...

**Roherwen** -- Thanks:) Here's more!

**

* * *

Chapter 2: Edinburgh, late May to end of June **

Daine's laptop blipped at her, and a blinking icon in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen told her she had new e-mail. She flipped into Eudora and shook her head, grinning ruefully: there were five new messages, and the three that weren't spam were from Numair. "RE: Hiring camping kit", read the subject line of the first one. "Look at this place!" urged the second, and the third read, "Planes, trains and automobiles – also buses".

Term had ended at the University, and Numair had begun in earnest to plan what looked increasingly like a long and involved holiday in the west of Canada. The University of Calgary had thanked Daine effusively for agreeing to be part of their vet-school curriculum committee and encouraged her, as she was travelling to Canada for the first time, to stay and see the local sights—"the Alberta Advantage," the Dean of the vet school had said. Her supervisor at the Zoo had also urged her to take advantage of the opportunity for an extended break (restraining herself with some difficulty, Daine felt, from actually using the word "workaholic"). And Numair, of course, had brooked no argument. "Right," she had told him at last: "You're the researcher. Go and do some research, then, and work out some sort of itinerary. And no posh hotels, mind."

The moment his last stack of final papers were marked, he had taken the job on with what seemed to her an almost indecent level of enthusiasm.

As Daine watched, a sixth message piled in on top of the others. "Free for lunch?" it inquired.

"That depends," she muttered. "Am I going to get any work done today, or will I spend it all reading your e-mails?"

But she opened that one, and answered it, and she was smiling as she stood and left her office to attend the daily meeting of the Zoo's veterinary staff.

* * *

"Look," Numair said happily, turning Daine's laptop around to face her. "Have you ever seen anything so astonishing?" 

She looked, preparing to humour him, and nearly choked on her cheese and onion roll. "Is that _natural_?" she demanded, once she had swallowed. "How can it be that _colour_?"

They were looking at an aerial photo of a small glacier-fed lake in the Canadian Rockies, a vivid turquoise jewel set in the midst of grey rock and deep-green boreal forest.

"Silt, apparently," said Numair. "I haven't had a chance to do much reading on that subject as yet, but it seems that—"

"You can tell me all about it later," she interrupted. "I've got rounds to do in forty-five minutes, you know."

"Right," he said, not even slightly deflated. "I've downloaded maps of Banff, Jasper, Kootenay, Yoho, and Waterton National Parks, and the University bookshop are ordering me some trail guides. What we want is to camp in the 'back country,' apparently, away from the majority of the walkers—hikers, they call them there. The University there will let us hire tents, sleeping bags, a campstove, and so forth, and the cost seems very reasonable. Though it's difficult to be sure," he added, frowning a little, "as the exchange rate seems to fluctuate by the moment. And we can get _to_ the 'back country' from Calgary by train or by bus or by hiring a car or bicycles, depending on where we want to go."

"You've been a busy lad," Daine commented. "Did I remember to ask you to do the washing-up and mow the lawn and run the hoover while you're about it?"

"Now, what about dinosaur fossils?" Numair continued, undeterred. "It's in the opposite direction to the mountains, but I'm told the palaeontology museum makes a lovely weekend trip …"

* * *

On the first Friday in June, Daine's post included a letter from Miri Larse, stuffed with photos of eighteen-month-old Nathan and ending with a sympathetic "Fingers crossed for you, love!" 

She had seen Numair flinch reflexively when she picked up the envelope from the coffee table (she knew, though he hadn't told her, that he had been systematically pre-screening all the post since the occasion when an invitation to a colleague's third baby shower had sent her into a two-day crying jag), and while she was reading the letter and examining the rather blurry photos—as a photographer, Miri had always made a good vet—she felt him hovering at the other end of the sofa, pretending to read his own post but glancing up at her so often that he could not possibly really be doing so.

To her astonishment, Miri's letter left her feeling uncomplicatedly happy for her friends. "Look," she said to her husband, holding out a photo that showed Nathan and Evin playing tug-of-war with what looked like a P.E. sock. "Isn't he sweet?"

Numair took the snap from her fingers cautiously, as though it (or she) might burst into flame. She saw him look down at it, grin spontaneously, then carefully compose his face before meeting her eyes again. "Very," he agreed, his voice expressionless.

"It's all right, 'Mair," she told him, and reached out to squeeze his hand. His answering grip was so urgent that she squeaked, and he quickly loosened his hold. "Really, I'm OK."

He was still staring at her as if waiting for the penny to drop. "Leave off," she said, annoyed, and poked him with her foot.

At this, finally, he grinned and held out a hand for the rest of the snaps. "Let's have a look at the little monster, then," he said, and she snuggled against his side as he settled down to look.

* * *

"You're looking very chipper," Alanna remarked casually. "I think your Wild West adventure must be doing you good already. When exactly is it that you go?" 

They were sitting in the back garden of the Swanston house, sipping lemonade and enjoying a warm, drowsy June afternoon.

"D'you know, I'm not sure?" Daine laughed. "The beginning of next month, I know that much. The first or second. I put Numair in charge of making all the arrangements, and you know how he is once he gets the bit between his teeth … I haven't had time to think about it much, to be honest. I'm that busy at the Zoo these days—some of the others are a bit nervous about doing without me for a whole month. I've heard stories about how the cats behave when I'm gone too long," she added darkly.

"And you're quite sure you want to leave young Aly in full charge of all you possess for five weeks?"

"If there's something else she'd rather be doing—" Daine began. She had worried about this part of the plan from the beginning, concerned that Aly would end up by resenting the responsibility.

"Good Lord, no," said Alanna. "It isn't that—she's thrilled. She's been quite insufferable about it, actually—anyone would think she'd been given command of a cavalry company or some such."

"Oh," said Daine, relieved but also, oddly, a little unnerved: she had, she realized, been half expecting something to go wrong at the last moment, forcing them to cancel their plans, but every day, now, made it more likely that she would really have to go through with the trip. And she was looking forward to it—really, she was—all but the bits that would require travelling across the Atlantic Ocean in an aeroplane. "What is it, then?"

Alanna glanced round as though checking for eavesdroppers. "Aly's not very dependable," she said bluntly. "I worry about what you might find when you get back."

Daine stared at her friend, confused. "Not dependable? _Aly_?" she repeated. "But when she volunteers at the Zoo, she never misses a week—she's scarcely ever late, even, and if she is she _always_ rings to tell me—and she never complains that the work's too hard. She'll even muck out, though the volunteers aren't meant to have to do that. And she's lovely with the animals. We'd not have asked her otherwise."

"That doesn't sound at all like my daughter." Alanna sighed. "Did you see her _hair_? But I'll have to take your word for it, I suppose—I know how likely _you_ are to pull your punches."

"I did notice the hair," Daine chuckled. Aly had been to visit her brother Thom at Oxford near the end of term, and had come home with her strawberry-blonde mane dyed bright blue. "She blamed it on one of Thom's friends who's doing chemistry. It seems plausible enough. Really, Alanna, it's only hair—it doesn't make her an irresponsible person."

Another sigh. "Probably she plays up because she's annoyed with me for even _suggesting_ that she consider doing something useful with her life. A _good_ mother would know how to sort her out, I'm sure. I'm at a loss."

Daine was about to protest that of course Alanna was a good mother, but a rush of disconnected memories from conversations with Alan, Thom and—especially—Aly over the past decade stopped her mouth. Much as she loved and admired her friend, she had to admit that, in fact, mothering was not Alanna's forte.

"We all do the best we can," she said instead.

* * *

Daine looked around the bedroom and sighed. Had she been asked a week ago, she would have said that this room could not possibly get any more chaotic; now, though, it looked as though a full gale had blown through it. 

"I _knew_ I ought to've done the packing myself," she muttered darkly.

"What was that, love?" Numair's flushed face appeared over the side of the bed, one eyebrow raised questioningly.

"Nothing," she said. "Have you actually packed _anything_ yet? Or are you still, how did you put it, 'sorting things out'?" She couldn't understand his sudden incompetence—this wasn't so very different, surely, from packing for a conference or a camping trip, both of which she had seen him do dozens of times without all this … _fuss._

Numair had the grace to look a bit sheepish. "I haven't quite decided how much reading material I'll need—"

"They have got a library there, you know," Daine interrupted. "I looked it up—it's got twelve storeys. I'm sure you'll find _something_ to read."

"Right, yes, but there's that article for _Wildlife Biology _that needs finishing, and the page proofs for my chapter in Lindhall's book—"

"Both of which are on your hard drive. Look," she said kindly, taking pity on him. "Why don't you let me have a go at the packing, and you can, em, you can take Mammoth and Mangle out for a run. I'm sure all three of you'd feel better for some fresh air."

* * *

"What are you doing, vetkin? Enjoying the sunset?" 

"No—well—nothing really. Checking round the garden to make sure everything's as it should be. I should hate to leave any nasty surprises for Aly."

Numair nodded. Griffin had once brought home a baby rabbit and petite, delicate Cloud, incredibly, a fully-grown magpie—it wouldn't be pleasant for Aly, so tenderhearted where beasts and, especially, birds were concerned, to find such a thing. And you never knew what the several hedgehogs resident at the bottom of the garden might have got up to with the local squirrels, badgers and foxes.

"She can always summon the cavalry, you know, if anything … untoward should happen," he reminded Daine as she roved the perimeter of the back garden. _And it's an odds-on bet something will. _"George or Alanna or one of the lads could be here in a few minutes."

Daine laughed. "Aly doesn't like to summon the cavalry," she said. "She likes to take care of things on her own. Once at the Zoo, when I—when I wasn't there, young Nigel made a pass, rather an, em, _enthusiastic _one, and … have I never told you this story?"

He shook his head, retroactively angry.

"Well, the point is, two Thursdays later Nigel had a little trouble."

"What sort of trouble?" Numair inquired.

Daine grinned wolfishly. "All sorts," she said. "But mainly penguins. _Someone_ had _somehow_ filled all his uniform pockets with frozen smelts then left them to thaw, and he emptied them out before putting his uniform on, of course, but he still reeked of raw fish. When the Penguin Parade went by, the little beggars mobbed him, and he had to be rescued." She looked at him with narrowed eyes. "Are you _sure_ I haven't told you about this?"

"I'm sure." He was grinning now. "I couldn't _possibly_ forget _that_. I never did like Nigel, you know. I'm delighted to hear that he got his comeuppance—and from our Aly, too."

"Not that there was ever any proof, mind. But," Daine concluded, "I don't think we need worry that she'll let _our_ beasties bully her. Still, though …"

She continued her prowl around the garden; Numair (realizing now that the inspection was more for her own benefit than for Aly's) dropped into a chair near the back door of the house and sat with his long legs extended, watching her. Though he had known Daine so long and so well that everything about her was familiar, certain things continually amazed him. The prowling was one. It must be just a trick of the light, surely, but in the gathering dusk, in her jeans and dark t-shirt, her curls pulled back into a thick plait, she looked almost more like a big cat—a panther, a leopard—than like a woman. Her bare feet made no sound that he could hear, and the increasing darkness seemed to make no difference to her silent, careful survey of her territory.

_My territory._ The proprietary instinct that he tried to keep in check flared for a moment—triggered not by the twilit garden but by the bewitchingly wild figure at its edge. The garden … well, he did love the garden, had loved it before he ever met her, but he knew that, were she not there to share it with him, it would be only grass and shrubs and flowers. _Our territory._

She dropped to her knees in the shadow of a lilac bush, and he started to his feet instinctively. He was about to laugh at himself for overreacting when, across the stillness of the garden, he heard her cry out—a low, sad sound that sent him racing toward her crouched form.

Twin missiles, one ginger, one black, erupted from the cat-flap and hurtled across the lawn. By the time Numair reached his wife, Cloud and Griffin had twined themselves comfortingly about her, while the third member of the cat triumvirate and two of the resident hedgehogs had emerged from the shrubbery, Spots contributing his loudest, most reassuring purr and the hedgehogs snuffling anxiously around Daine's bare feet. Numair—completely unsurprised by this odd alliance of feline and erinaceid_—_crouched beside them and put an arm around Daine's shoulders.

"What is it, love?" he asked her gently.

Wordlessly she brought her right hand up to her chest and opened it to show him a small white object. He took it from her and squinted at it.

"A baby's shoe?" he asked. "What was _that_ doing in our back garden?"

Daine didn't answer; he hadn't really expected her to, and of course the tiny shoe might have come there in any number of ways, most of them involving Mammoth or (more likely) Mangle or one of the cats. Its provenance didn't really matter. He stuffed the grubby, pathetic object into the pocket of his trousers.

"Come inside, dear heart," he said. "It's late, and it's dark. You can finish inspecting in the morning."

He helped her to her feet and led her into the house, where he tucked her up on the sofa with Cloud in her lap and Mammoth at her feet and then settled in beside her, drawing her head down onto his chest and holding her close. Her hand found his and gripped it tight.

She had not uttered another sound.

_Not now,_ he prayed silently to whomever, whatever, might be listening. _Not this, not now. _They were due to leave the next morning—the Coopers were coming to bring Aly and to give the travellers a lift to the airport—and he knew how Daine would hate anyone but him to see her like this.

Her breathing slowed; her grip on his fingers eased. "Daine?" Numair whispered.

She was asleep.

He lifted her in his arms and carried her up to bed; undressed her as best he could without waking her, tucked the duvet round her, perched beside her on the bed, stroking her hair.

He had woken this morning feeling happy and wonderfully alive, eager to begin what he privately called their "transatlantic adventure." Now he felt tired and anxious and _old_. There was washing-up to be done, and packing to finish, and no doubt all manner of other last-minute things to be seen to, but Numair felt completely unable to tackle any of them.

Sleep would help, he decided, and he undressed swiftly, pulled on the bottom half of the nearest pair of pyjamas, cleaned his teeth with less thoroughness than usual, and slipped into bed beside Daine, curling his body around hers to keep her warm. Her deep, slow breathing reassured him, and within minutes he was asleep.

He half-woke an hour or more later when Daine, her eyes still closed, turned in his embrace, lithe as a cat, and put her arms round his neck, pressing the length of her sleep-warm body against him. Her lips sought his, soft and yielding yet somehow insistent, and he let himself respond.

In the morning he woke wondering whether their languorous, gentle lovemaking had been only a dream.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** Thanks for all the lovely reviews:) Heeeeeere's chapter 3!

**Disclaimer:** Tamora Pierce's characters, my twisted reimagining thereof. Enjoy, and don't sue.

**

* * *

Chapter 3: Toronto, Calgary, 1–3 July**

"What time is it now?" Numair demanded, glowering at the boarding passes in his hand.

Daine made an irritated noise and looked at her watch. "A quarter to ten," she said. "No—hang on—that's UK time. Bugger." She looked around and eventually located a clock, which read "14:45". "A quarter to three," she corrected.

Numair swore elaborately under his breath. "Have you _any _idea where we're meant to be going?" he asked at last, just as the clock clicked over to 14:46.

"None," said Daine. "But I think I've worked out why we're lost. That map—" she gestured at the large, colourful, and symbol-strewn map of Lester B. Pearson International Airport's brand-new Terminal 1 that she had been studying during his _sotto voce _tirade— "is drawn upside down and backward."

"You're putting me on." He looked at it, then around the cavernous departures level, then back at the artistically backlit map. "Good Lord, you're right. Vetkin, you're brilliant!"

To Daine's astonishment, he was grinning. "That helps, you're thinking?" she said dubiously.

"Well, yes, of course. See, if this is upside down and backward, and we're _here_—" he stabbed a long finger at the red _You Are Here_ on the map— "then the problem is that we've been trying to get _there_, but we ought really to be going _that_ way. Now that we know—"

Click: 14:48.

"Now that we know, we'd best be putting on speed, 'Mair. The flight to Calgary leaves in _twelve minutes._"

* * *

Amy Fotheringham, Assistant to the Dean of the University of Calgary's new veterinary school, stood in the arrivals area of the Calgary International Airport, feeling rather foolish. She was holding a large poster-board sign that read "WELCOME, DR SARRASRI!" and wearing, in deference to the prevailing aesthetic of the upcoming Stampede Week, a white Stetson and her nicest pair of cowboy boots. Her boss had never met the woman Amy was supposed to be welcoming, and Amy herself hadn't been able to find a single photo of her online; all she knew was that she was looking for a British woman in her late twenties—a vet, of course—travelling with her husband, whose name Amy hadn't caught but who was supposed to be a brilliant researcher in … was it biochemistry? 

People streamed out of the gate off the flight from Toronto, most of them identifiably either tourists destined for the Stampede or oilpatch Calgarians returning from business trips. In the midst of the crowd, as she searched for her vet and her professor, Amy spotted two people who seemed not quite to belong. If pressed, she might have described them as superannuated university students just back from the youth-hostel circuit; both wore well-used jeans and Birkenstocks, and each carried a large frame backpack from which dangled a pair of businesslike hiking boots. Amy wondered idly how they had talked their way onto the plane with so much carry-on luggage. The woman was slightly built, perhaps an inch or two shorter than Amy's five feet seven inches, with an open, expressive, _young_ face, the big eyes and soft mouth offset by a the stubborn chin; her head was wrapped in some sort of bright batik scarf. Her black-haired, dark-eyed companion was older and at least a foot taller, lanky and broad-shouldered, and carried his large pack as though it were nearly weightless. He was very handsome, Amy reflected, though perhaps his nose was a _little_ long for her taste.

Just as she was thinking this, the object of her notice touched his companion on the shoulder and motioned in Amy's direction, smiling. The woman followed his gesture, spotted Amy and her sign, and, breaking into a grin, began pushing toward her through the crowd.

With a start, Amy realized that, in fact, this odd-looking little woman with the hiking boots tied to her backpack was the famous Dr Sarrasri.

_Rats. That means Mr Tall, Dark and Handsome is married to her._

But there was no point in thinking that way—it wasn't as though she made a habit of coming on to strangers in airports, anyway. Instead she waved at the visitors and returned Dr Sarrasri's friendly grin. "Welcome to Calgary!" she said as they approached. "How was your flight?"

* * *

"This is all your baggage?" Amy asked incredulously. 

"Yes," said Dr Sarrasri—Daine, Amy corrected herself. She was staring, apparently fascinated, at the diorama displayed atop the baggage carousel: a model of some sort of dinosaur rampaging through a pile of suitcases. Amy had never really noticed before what a bizarre way this was to welcome people to a new city.

"We've got most of our kit in the rucksacks," explained her husband, hefting the single suitcase one-handed. He had waved away Amy's offer to carry it. "Our books, and laptops, and so on. Once your cases go into the cargo hold, you never quite know where they'll finish up."

His voice was a warm, musical baritone with an oddly mixed accent—a dollop of the Scottish brogue Amy had expected, but behind it what she thought of as "a regular British accent" and, too, a hint of something more exotic. _Like his name—talk about exotic!_

"OK, then," she said, giving herself a mental shake, "if you've got all your stuff, let's get going. You're probably dying to get to your hotel and relax, after all that travelling."

Numair tugged gently on his wife's hand, and, when she had torn herself away from the rampaging dinosaur, the three of them headed for the exit.

They looked out the automatic doors into a downpour.

"No, wait," said Amy to her charges, who seemed quite prepared to walk straight through the rain to the parkade. "It'll stop in about ten minutes."

"How can you tell?" Numair asked her, his face alight with curiosity. They retreated back into the arrivals lounge.

She shrugged. "It's suppertime, more or less," she said. "We get a storm pretty much every afternoon around five or six, all through May and June. I mean, it's July now, but … anyway, it rolls through same time every day from the east, and keeps going, out west toward the mountains. Never lasts more than about twenty minutes. So if we just wait it out, we can stay dry."

"From the east? Where do the storm systems begin?" Numair looked fascinated, and seemed about to ask something else, but Daine forestalled him: "Don't interrogate the poor girl, 'Mair." Turning to Amy, she went on apologetically, "He can't help it. It's just the way he is."

"You're welcome to ask," Amy said, "but I don't really know that much about meteorology. Now, if you want to know about tourist stuff …"

"We heard people on the aeroplane talking about a 'stampede'," Daine said. "We're not about to be trampled by herds of, em, migrating buffaloes, are we?"

Amy giggled. "You're thinking of the Running of the Bulls," she said, "in Spain somewhere. The Stampede's just a rodeo, but it's the big one, with exhibition halls and a midway and everything. It starts next week."

"And what exactly is a rodeo?" Numair inquired.

"It's—well—" no one had ever asked Amy precisely this question, and she wasn't sure where to begin. "There's steer wrestling, and calf-roping, and bronco-busting, and … well, barrel races … rodeo clowns … chuckwagon races …"

Now they both looked positively mystified, and a little distressed. They looked at each other, and Numair mouthed something that looked like _I'll noodle it. _

"Oh, look," Amy said. "The rain stopped. Shall we?"

* * *

They reached their hotel via a bewildering drive along a ring road past endless housing estates, on one side, and what Amy told them was Nose Hill Park on the other, a vast grassy rise whose green-gold vegetation flowed and rippled in the wind like the surface of a pond. Daine stared at it, across the back seat and out the window of Amy's small Toyota, half-hypnotized by the ebb and flow of that grassy tide. 

The hotel itself was considerably less fascinating: a "motor inn" in a complex of many others—"it's called Motel Village," Amy explained—with no particular character. Daine was rather grateful for its lack of pretension, so utterly unreminiscent of her last stay in a large, expensive hotel. And this one did offer a nice clean room with a large shower bath and a kitchenette. "Since you're staying so long, I thought you probably wouldn't want to eat out all the time," said Amy. "I booked all the out-of-towners into places with at least a fridge. And it's got Internet access, and a pool, and satellite and everything."

"That's very thoughtful," Daine said. "Thank you. And this is quite near the Uni, as well, isn't it?"

Amy nodded. "I don't know if you guys were planning on renting a car," she said, "but if not, you can easily take the C-Train, or I'm sure you could carpool with someone else on the committee …"

Daine and Numair exchanged incredulous glances. "We'll walk," Numair said firmly.

"OK," said their hostess. They saw her glance at the rucksacks that now leaned against a wall, climbing boots dangling. "I'll ask the desk to make sure you have a decent map. I left your committee package on the desk there, Daine. I'll, um, I'll leave you two to get settled, and I'll see you tomorrow morning—Stampede breakfast at nine o'clock," she grinned. "You're both invited. Bring your appetites."

When she had left, they subsided onto the bed.

"She's very friendly, isn't she?" Daine remarked.

"Everyone seems to be very friendly here," Numair agreed. So far they had not met a single person who hadn't welcomed them enthusiastically, wished them a happy Canada Day, inquired about their journey, and urged them to enjoy their stay. Daine was finding it rather exhausting.

"What d'you reckon a Stampede breakfast is?"

"I've no idea, but I'll—"

"Google it," they said together, then laughed.

* * *

"So, this is a Stampede breakfast," Daine said indistinctly, trying to swallow her mouthful of pancakes and syrup (she had declined the sausages) and struggling to balance her paper plate, plastic fork, and styrofoam beaker of scalding coffee. They had not, in fact, ever done the planned Googling, because, what with the time-zone change and the long, tiring journey, they had fallen asleep in their clothes, without eating or finishing their unpacking, at half seven the previous evening. 

"Uh-huh," Amy said happily. "Are you having fun?"

"Em … yes, lots," said Daine. "I feel thoroughly welcomed. And the fiddlers are lovely. Only I don't think I've ever eaten so much sugar so early in the morning before." She glanced round for Numair and spotted him deep in conversation with a cheerful, balding man who had been introduced to her earlier as an expert on zoonotic diseases of wildlife from the University of California. Numair had abandoned his uneaten breakfast atop a nearby litter bin and was nursing a beaker of coffee in one hand whilst gesturing expansively with the other.

Amy had followed her gaze. "Is he OK, your hubby?" she asked, looking concerned. "It doesn't look like he's eating anything."

"Numair isn't much good at mornings," Daine explained. "He'll be fine, though. He's obviously enjoying himself."

"Really?"

"Oh, yes," said Daine, laughing. "He hasn't got his party face on." This was her private name for the way Numair behaved when he was overcompensating for feeling uncomfortable at a large gathering. "I can't think what he's got so involved in, at this hour of the morning, but trust me, he's fine."

"OK, well, I'll see you later—gotta make the rounds, you know." With a last grin, Amy was gone, and Daine reapplied herself to her breakfast. Really, she thought, if she kept eating this way for two weeks, then sitting in curriculum meetings all day, Numair would have to _roll_ her along from one campsite to the next for the succeeding fortnight. But, presumably because she hadn't had any proper supper the previous day, she was very hungry.

A brace of middle-aged men in khakis, polo shirts and Tevas approached, smiling, and Daine tried frantically to remember their names. She had been introduced to so many people over the past forty-five minutes that they had begun to run together in her mind—not only the other members of the curriculum committee but also assorted spouses thereof, charter members of the teaching staff, University administrators, and support staff. Oddly, she seemed to be the only committee member from outside North America—or, rather, it was odd that she should have been invited from so much farther away than anyone else.

All she could remember about these two was that they were American, but one of them looked disconcertingly familiar.

"Dr Sarrasri," said the other one, a smallish, greying fellow with merry blue eyes. "I've really been looking forward to meeting you."

"It's just Daine, please," said Daine, returning his smile and hoping she didn't seem rude. Somehow, no matter how confident she was in herself and her work, no matter that she could talk sense into an angry rhinoceros or soothe an injured tiger, she had never grown comfortable with what the professional literature called "networking."

But this chap seemed nice enough. "Then you must call me Greg," he said. Yes, that was it: Dr Gregory Osborne, a specialist in marine wildlife from the vet school at North Carolina State University. "Greg," Daine repeated firmly. "Lovely to meet you."

Greg's friend was looking at Daine as though trying to remember where he had seen her before, which intensified her feeling that she knew him from somewhere. Suddenly his eyes widened and he went pale—and immediately she remembered.

"You were at that conference," he said, sounding shaken, "the one where—the one in—"

"Yes," Daine confirmed. "I knew I'd seen you somewhere before. Did you—are you … are you all right?"

He nodded. "No long-term damage," he said a bit too heartily. "And yourself?"

She had not considered this question for some time, and found she was not sure how to answer it. "I have my ups and downs," she said at last, "good days and bad. I try to stay away from posh hotels and hot climates," she added in an attempt to lighten the mood. The three of them laughed uncertainly.

"I'm so sorry," she confessed, "I've forgotten your name."

"Bruce Dunlop," he said, "from Oregon State. Coastal wildlife and—"

"Zoonotic diseases, of course," Daine said, smiling. She remembered now that although Americans were all over bioterrorism and zoonotic diseases as a rule, that particular conference had attracted very few of them—no more than half a dozen. The rumour had been that it was political; she had since decided that, quite simply, the Americans had been less easily duped than the rest of the world. "Out of curiosity," she asked now, unable to stop herself, "why _were_ you there? I mean, there were so few American delegates …"

"It had so much potential, that conference. And there were some people I really wanted to meet," Bruce said. "You, for instance. And that guy you've written so many papers with … I know his name," he added, grinning disarmingly, "but I'm not going to try and pronounce it in public. I talked to you for about ten seconds at your panel, but I never did meet …"

Daine suppressed a hysterical giggle. "Numair Salmalín?" she asked.

Bruce seemed to be thinking about it. "Yeah," he said after a moment. "_That's_ how you say it? Funny name, anyway."

"It is," Daine agreed. "He was very young when he picked it out, and I think he was trying to impress people."

Too late she realized that Bruce and Greg were both looking at her as though she had stopped making sense.

"That's him over there," she said, pointing. "He's my husband. Come along and I'll introduce you."

* * *

The planning meetings began in earnest in the afternoon, and by five o'clock Daine (whose body had yet to adjust to the shifts in time and altitude that she had forced upon it) was thoroughly exhausted. Her mobile held a message from Numair informing her that he had gone back to their hotel and would see her there; the walk back, though short, seemed less appealing as a solo venture, and so she accepted a lift in Bruce's hired car. She noticed with interest that although it was not a particularly warm day, he wound all the windows all the way down before starting the motor. 

When she wearily let herself into the hotel room, she found it transformed. Numair had finished the unpacking, put things away in drawers and closet, set up both their laptops on the small desk, arranged toothbrushes and hair-taming equipment next to the sink, and filled the small fridge and cupboard of their tiny kitchenette with orange juice, apples, bananas, oranges, instant porridge, rice cakes, strawberries, a cucumber, a French loaf, a block of sharp cheddar, half a pound of butter, and a cellophane bag labelled "baby-cut carrots." On the dressing-table, beneath the enormous mirror, a bunch of rosebuds sprouted from the ice bucket.

"You've gone all domestic lately," Daine teased. "I'm not sure whether it's adorable or frightening."

Numair looked offended.

"Sorry, love." She kissed him, and he dropped his indignant expression with suspicious ease and lifted her off her feet to kiss her back. "It was lovely of you to spend the whole afternoon making the place comfortable," she said, when she had got her breath back. "I know you'd far rather have been exploring the Uni library."

At the word "library" his dark eyes lit up. "Did you know that there are peregrine falcons nesting on the roof of the Library Tower?" he enthused. "And one whole level of the tower is the Canadian Music Centre—a repository of the works and papers of contemporary composers in the region. And the twelfth floor—the top level—is the Arctic Institute of North America. They publish a journal called _Arctic_ that—"

"I didn't realize you were so interested in the Arctic, or in Canadian contemporary music."

"Well, I've no idea whether I am or not." Numair was using his Eminently Reasonable voice. "But there's only one way to find out."


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **Still not totally happy with this chapter, but here goes. I may rework it later.

Thanks for all the reviews, everyone:) It has come to my attention that some readers consider it rude to have a huge long a/n replying to all one's reviews, so I've stopped doing that. I do want to address one thing, though: yes, if you're confused, you should go and read _Scientist King_. Or at least the italic flashback bits. You will be less confused then, I promise.

**Disclaimer:** Laura, Laurel, Pritha, Linda, Sandy, Mike, and Carl are my invention, kind of (they are loosely based on actual people). Numair and Daine and Aly are Tamora Pierce's, although in her books they're not _quite_ like this...

**

* * *

Chapter 4: Calgary, Bragg Creek, 3–8 July**

Daine, who had rarely attended a meeting she enjoyed, found the work she had come here to do both exhausting and exhilarating. The idea of planning a programme of study that didn't yet exist—that could be (almost) whatever they wanted to make it—was compelling, and there seemed to be a genuine desire on the part of the Dean and the teaching staff to craft a strong and effective zoo-and-wildlife track.

Sitting more or less all day in one conference room or another, however, very quickly began to grate on her nerves.

Still, the campus, and the walk between it and their hotel, was much pleasanter than she had expected. The buildings were nearly all of that particularly hideous late-1960s vintage, true, but they were so well spread out, and the grounds around them so heavily treed and so beautifully kept, that one hardly noticed. And it was full of friendly welcomes. Often, as she and Numair entered the campus before going their separate ways (she to her meeting, he to the Library Tower), magpies or red-winged blackbirds or chickadees swooped down to greet her; occasionally a rabbit or a squirrel paused at the edge of the footpath ahead, waiting expectantly for her to hunker down and pat it.

On Tuesday, the first full day of meetings, Daine crossed the campus to the MacEwan Student Centre (known to the locals as Mac Hall) to meet Numair for lunch; they had been reliably informed that good food was to be had upstairs in something called the Grad Lounge. With her went her zoo-vet colleagues (Laura and Pritha, from the Calgary Zoo, and Laurel, from Toronto) and Linda Montali, the stocky, fortyish representative of the Ontario Veterinary College who, during the opening round of introductions, had described her research interests as "anything that isn't a dog, a cat, or a farm animal".

They had got no more than twenty feet across the grass when Linda, who was first of the group, stopped abruptly and said, "Look at that!"

Laura and Pritha had been arguing good-naturedly about which of their colleagues would be first to panic and text-message one of them for assistance in their absence; Daine and Laurel were walking with faces raised to the sky, marvelling at how blue it was and how, as Laurel had put it the day before, "there seems to be so much _more_ of it than there is at home." At Linda's words they all stopped and looked at her, before following the line of her outstretched arm to the object of her attention.

Rabbits.

More than two dozen of them—adults and youngsters—massed very deliberately ahead of them in the vivid grass.

"Good Lord," said Daine, startled back into the flat Yorkshire vowels of her adolescence. "It's the Lagomorph Mothers' Union!"

Her colleagues backed away a little; wildlife vets or no, this was clearly not the sort of display they were used to. "It's like _The Birds_," someone whispered, "except …"

Daine dropped to her knees and leaned down, holding out both hands, palm up, toward the cluster of jackrabbits. They came to her by twos and threes, sniffing her fingers; the braver ones sat up on their hindquarters and touched their soft noses to hers, which tickled so that she had to bite her lip to keep from giggling. Their fur was beautifully soft under her fingertips, and they regarded her calmly with their large, lambent golden-brown eyes.

When each of them had greeted her, they began to straggle away, gradually melting back into the shrubbery.

"Wow." Tall, crop-haired Laurel was the first to find her voice. "Is going for lunch with you always this exciting?"

**

* * *

From: **aly cooper  
**To: **Sarrasri, Daine  
**Subject:** RE: Just checking up  
hi aunt daine,  
glad to hear you're safely there and having a nice time. everything's fine here, thanks – griffin is his usual cranky self and i think mammoth is pining for you a bit, but he seems happier today. the spare bed's very comfy, thanks :). i might tidy up a bit downstairs, is that ok?  
there's been nothing in the post but circulars, so nothing much to report there. mum's ringing practically every hour to make sure i haven't set the house on fire or similar. can you tell her to leave off? she's sending me mad.  
love,  
aly xo

* * *

On Wednesday afternoon Numair, carrying a rucksack whose contents he declined to identify, collected Daine at the conclusion of her workday, and they set out from the campus along Charleswood Drive, past a shopping plaza featuring concerns labelled "Safeway" ("That's where I did the shopping") and "London Drugs" ("That appears to be the local Boots the Chemist, though what its resemblance to London is meant to be I can't imagine"), then past a long series of quiet residential streets whose names, puzzlingly, all seemed to begin with "C" to the right and with "B" to the left. 

"Where are we going?" Daine asked at last.

"Guess."

"You're not lost again, are you?"

"You wound me, vetkin." Daine rolled her eyes at this. "No, _we_ are not lost. You'll see in a few minutes."

"I hope so," she said feelingly. "This hill is getting steepish, don't you find?"

She saw Numair glance at her, concerned, and realized that he didn't seem even slightly winded. "I'm sorry," he said, slowing the pace a little. "It must be the altitude. I ought to have thought of that."

"It's fine." But she did not try to speed up again.

At length they reached the end of Charleswood Drive, where it debouched onto John Laurie Boulevard, and stood looking across several lanes of traffic at a chain-link fence.

"Oh," said Numair.

"Is that what I think it is? What a wonderful idea, 'Mair!"

"It's Nose Hill Park," he confirmed. "But somehow I didn't imagine all this traffic—"

"It's all right," Daine said. "Watch."

After glancing right, then, remembering, left, she stepped off the kerb.

Behind her, she heard Numair begin to bellow at her, then change his mind when (apart from one minivan which sped past, honking) the traffic halted to let them cross.

On the other side, he hugged her fiercely. "Don't _do_ that!" he fumed. "I nearly had a heart attack. What made you think they'd stop?"

"Laura told me," Daine said, feeling squashed but a little smug. "She's lived here most of her life. And they did stop, didn't they? Come on, love, don't sulk."

"I'm not _sulking_," he retorted. "I'm merely recovering from your latest attempt to send me into an early grave. Now—shall we?"

Rested, they made their way through the pedestrian gate and began to climb the hill.

They were halfway through their picnic supper—bread and cheese and apples, with a thermos of tea—when the first porcupine stopped by to greet them. It was followed a quarter of an hour later by another one, and then by a coyote and a family of deer. Every few minutes a ground squirrel or two wandered by to observe.

"A hundred and ninety-eight species of wildlife have been identified in this park," Numair whispered. The young doe who was nuzzling Daine's hair raised her head to look at him; he froze, anxious not to startle her further.

"It's all right," said Daine, whether to her husband or the deer she wasn't entirely sure.

Later, as they stood on the hillside looking down at the city, about to begin their descent, he turned her gently to face the west and the jagged blue-grey line of the Rocky Mountains along the horizon. "We'll be there in less than a fortnight," she breathed, awed, "somewhere in the middle of all that. Can you believe it?"

"Well, stranger things have happened," he murmured against her ear.

**

* * *

From: **Sarrasri, Daine  
**To: **aly cooper  
**Subject:** RE: RE: Just checking up  
Dear Aly,  
Thanks for the quick reply! Tell Mammoth I miss him, too. I'll e-mail your mum and tell her you're doing fine, but I doubt it'll do much good – you know your mum!  
By all means, tidy up if you want to – Lord knows the place needs it. You know the sort of stuff you need to leave alone, though, yes? If in doubt, ask!  
Thanks so much for looking after our beasties.  
Love,  
Daine  
P.S. Your uncle says not to touch the stuff at the back of the second shelf in the fridge. He says, and I quote, "Yes, I realize that it looks like mouldy cheese. It is carefully labelled mouldy cheese with a scientific purpose." TIA, D.

* * *

"I'm sure we can find horses to suit us," Daine said. "It's this tack that makes me a bit nervous." It was Saturday morning, and she was standing in the middle of a barn-like building at a boarding stable in Bragg Creek, some forty-five minutes outside Calgary, looking apprehensively around at the enormous Western saddles all over the walls. 

"Ooooh," said Sandy Salvati, a wildlife biologist with Parks Canada, at whose invitation Daine, Numair, Linda, and Mike Lloyd from Colorado State University were here. "I didn't even think of that. You're probably used to an English saddle, huh? Well, let me see what they've got in the back room. Go out and get acquainted with the horses, everybody."

Daine led the way out to the closest paddock; not bothering to look for a gate, she hopped nimbly over the low rail fence and called the horses with a low whistle. The small, timid bay mare with the white star on her forehead was Sandy's Arwen, she could tell; Daine gently threaded her way through the herd to stroke the mare's neck and to blow softly into her nostrils, teaching Arwen her scent. The mare whuffled back, pleased, and butted her nose against Daine's chest. "You _are_ lovely, aren't you?" Daine praised her. "No wonder Sandy loves you so."

She found a tall, sweet-natured piebald gelding for Numair, warning him in advance that he was in for a rough ride, but promising apples at the end of it; an eager little sorrel mare chose her, almost knocking Daine flat in her enthusiasm. It was harder to know what might suit Linda and Mike, as she had known them only a week, but both had said they were near-beginners, so she looked for gentle, placid beasts who would not mind inexperienced riders. _That one, over there along the fence—she's the right sort of thing._

"Daine?" That was Sandy's voice, inflected with concern. "Everything all right?"

Daine turned to reassure her, one arm around the little sorrel mare, and began to laugh: there was Sandy, standing at the fence beside Mike, and behind her people in jeans and cowboy boots were barrelling toward the paddock, holding their hats on their heads. "What's happening?" she inquired, when she had managed to catch her breath. "Is there some sort of emergency?"

"Well—the thing is—when I said you should go get acquainted with the horses, I really meant from _outside_ the fence," Sandy explained. "They don't really like visitors going into the paddocks …"

"I'm sorry." Daine gave 'her' horse a last pat and made her way back to the fence. "I didn't realize. I'll come out." She heaved herself back over and stood on the other side dusting her hands on her shirt. "Only I thought it would be more efficient if I got all our horses while you were looking for the tack …"

By this time she and Sandy were surrounded by the owners and several employees of the stable, who explained at considerable length that visitors were not permitted to roam around inside the paddocks, that not all the horses were available for day rides as they belonged to boarding clients, that some of them were "ornery" and the stables refused to take responsibility for any injuries visitors incurred through their own failure to follow the posted rules, that a few had even been known to _bite—_

"You mean that one?" Daine pointed out an irritable-looking strawberry roan. "He's got ear mites, that's why he's out of sorts. You want to put some ointment in his ears—I'll write out the scrip for you if you like—"

But the stable owners were beginning to look outraged, and she was rather grateful, after all, when Numair put a casual arm around her shoulders and smoothly interjected, "What Daine means is that she's sorry to have worried everyone, but she is a qualified vet and has a great deal of experience with horses, and furthermore she was unaware of that rule. We shall all be more careful from now on."

"Right," she said, trying not to giggle as the sorrel mare nuzzled her left ear. "That's just what I meant."

To her immense amusement, the mounts selected for the group by their assigned stable-hand were exactly those she had chosen herself (the sorrel mare, Scrap by name, being a something of a foregone conclusion, as she had stuck to Daine like glue since their first meeting). The piebald gelding turned out to be called Spots—"Just like our Spots!" she chuckled to Numair, who seemed to find the association dubious—and the shy mare she had marked out for Mike or Linda was introduced to the latter as Penny. Mike was assigned a bay with white socks who went by the name of Marty.

Though at first their slow pace made Daine itch for a good canter, before long she was lost in enjoyment of the beautiful weather, the trail's breathtaking proximity to the mountains, and—perhaps most of all—the simple fact of being on horseback, outdoors, with the sun on her skin and the scents of horse and grass and pine-needles in her nostrils. Ahead of her Numair and Spots seemed to be coping well with one another, all things considered; she allowed herself a restrained grin when the former, lost in contemplation of some object he had picked up during their last rest break, narrowly missed grazing his head on a tree branch.

"Animals really like you, don't they," Linda remarked, as Penny broke out of line to amble beside Daine and Scrap. "I've never seen anything like it."

Daine shrugged and said, as she always did, "It's a knack. I've always had it."

"Well, whatever it is," said Linda, "it's good for picking out horses. I've never felt so comfortable on a horse before."

* * *

"Dr Barton," Daine began, diffidently. She had asked to see the Dean, and was now rather wishing she had let the matter drop. 

"Carl, please," he reminded her.

"Right. Carl. Em … the thing is …" she stopped, annoyed with herself for behaving like a tongue-tied adolescent. "I'd like it if you could tell me why I'm here. I mean—I understand what my job is, and I'm incredibly pleased and flattered to have been asked, but … why me? I can't help but notice I'm the only one who's come so far, as well as the youngest, and it seems so odd, when there must be hundreds of more experienced people closer to hand …"

The Dean looked at her consideringly. "You weren't the only European delegate we invited," he said, "just the only one who wanted to come."

"Oh." That was something, anyway. She wouldn't, of course, tell him that she _hadn't_ exactly wanted to come, that her husband had more or less browbeaten her into agreeing. It had turned out to be a good idea, and that was the main thing.

"As for your age and experience," Dr Barton smiled, "you were highly recommended by a number of colleagues whose opinions I respect. You're billed as having exceptional insight into animal behaviour and the human–animal bond, and those are some of the most important areas of veterinary education, wouldn't you say?"

Daine nodded, wondering who those colleagues had been and what exactly they had told him.

"How is the planning going?" he asked then. "Are you managing to reach a consensus? What do you think of the programme so far?"

Here she was on firmer ground. "It's going very well," she assured him. "We're all having a lovely time—that is, it's lovely to have an opportunity like this, to build a zoo-and-wildlife course from the ground up and really think about what ought to go into it, instead of cobbling it together from odds and ends and having to bargain for more course time and so on. And the level of cooperation you've got here, with the other vet schools in the country …" Daine sighed. "I'd love to see something like it at home."

"Perhaps you could import some of our ideas," Dr Barton suggested.

She laughed. "Not me," she said. "My main job's at the Zoo, and even when I am working for the vet school I'm only a lowly sessional lecturer. I'll certainly be telling everyone I meet about your marvellous new zoo-and-wildlife course, though. Perhaps if the right people got jealous and wanted one like it …"

* * *

**From: **aly cooper  
**To: **Sarrasri, Daine  
**Subject:** RE: RE: RE: Just checking up  
hi again,  
thanks for talking to mum, i appreciate it! she's only rung twice since yesterday which is a big improvement.  
you can tell uncle mair his cheese experiment is safe :shudder:.  
love,  
aly xo 


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: **Here it is: the next chapter. It's very long, and I'm not totally happy with it, but as I've now been accused of abandoning the story ...

I've yet to start chapter 6, so there may be another longish wait for that one. Sorry in advance. I am very motivated by reviews, however ... ;)

Oh, and a warning: chapter contains (if you squint a little) OC slash. Just 'cos I can.

**Disclaimer: **Daine, Numair, Alanna, etc.: not mine. Other people: mine. Plot: mostly mine.

**

* * *

Chapter 5: Calgary, Drumheller, 9–16 July**

"What are you up to, vetkin?" Numair asked Daine, who was seated at the dressing-table, scribbling furiously.

"Postcards," she replied without looking up.

"Postcards?"

"Mm. It's what people do when they go abroad on holiday, you know. And I've never _been_ abroad on holiday before, so …"

Numair crossed the small room to stand behind her chair; he kneaded her shoulders gently, and she purred and stretched like a cat. "That's lovely," she said after a moment, "only it's hard to write …"

He stopped.

"How many have you got?" he inquired, regarding the large stack of cards with some amazement.

"Have a look," Daine invited. She waved a hand at the pile. Numair picked it up and flipped through cards addressed to Evin and Miri, the Contés, George and Alanna and Alan (and a separate one for Aly, at their own address), Thom, Kally, Roald, Onua, a long series of Zoo and Dick School colleagues …

"What are you finding to write about?"

"Mostly," Daine admitted, "I'm just going on and on about the beautiful scenery and how _friendly _everyone is. Go on and read them if you like," she added.

Glancing up, she saw his frown reflected in the mirror. "They're _postcards_, 'Mair. They're hardly private. And besides—"

He grinned at her. "Besides, if you wanted to abuse me to all my friends, you'd have used e-mail—it's faster, and offers far more scope for unpleasant detail."

He dodged as she lobbed a roll of stamps at him, but not quickly enough; it struck him on the shoulder, and he fell backwards onto the bed, groaning in mock agony.

"_Very_ funny," Daine's reflection told him, trying with only moderate success to cover her laughter with a disapproving glare.

* * *

Tuesday's programme revolved around a trip to the Calgary Zoo, which most of the committee (and Numair) reached by C-Train. Laura's precise instructions—"meet at eight forty-five at the mammoth in the train tunnel"—made more sense in the execution than they had in the abstract, to Numair's relief, there being, in fact, a life-sized fibreglass model of a mammoth in the pedestrian tunnel that led from Zoo Station to the Zoo itself. 

Whenever he and Daine visited a new zoo together, Numair couldn't help remembering their first trip to the Edinburgh Zoo—the rather daunting greetings of the sea lions, which had frightened him half out of his wits; the Penguin Parade waddling to an unexpected halt as it passed them, to the keepers' consternation; the meerkats flattening themselves against the glass of their enclosure in an attempt to "talk" to Daine. He was more used to it, now; he knew more or less what was coming, and he no longer feared for Daine's safety: if the past decade had taught him nothing else, he had at least learnt that no human being on earth was safer around animals than she. He felt, in fact, ever so slightly amused and smug, thinking, _They've no idea what they're in for._

He hadn't expected—though he ought to have done, he realized—the real peril: dozens of babies and toddlers in pushchairs, prams, carry-packs and slings, so thick around the entrance to the zoo grounds, waiting with their mothers and older siblings for the nine-o'clock opening, that there seemed to be no end to them. Was the Edinburgh Zoo like this? If so, how could Daine spend every day there and be able to function?

He watched her anxiously as their group passed through the gate and turned left toward their first destination, the vast Canadian Wilds area on the north bank of the river—so intensely focused, so alert for signs of impending upset, that it took him some time to register what was upsetting everyone else.

Noticing at last the unnatural silence, he realized that Daine was the object of a rather unnerving level of scrutiny on the part of the local animal population. Those in the group who had not previously witnessed such an encounter wore expressions ranging from perplexed through alarmed to (in Amy's case) frankly terrified. "It's only caribou," he heard himself say. "Be thankful you've never had to watch her face down an angry Amur tiger."

Daine turned her head to glare at him—not playfully this time. "I _do _wish you'd stop telling people that," she said. "I've told you—"

"I know, I know." He raised his hands in surrender. "She wasn't angry, just—" he found he couldn't say it. _I'm getting to be worse than Daine._

Who was no longer listening in any case.

Numair was cross with himself; he ought to have remembered how much his retelling of that particular incident irritated her. It was one thing to forget a dinner engagement with a colleague, or to forget to return your library books for a few months, but forgetting something you _knew_ annoyed your wife, that was like … it was like forgetting the Periodic Table. Inexplicable, unpardonable, and a sure sign of impending senility.

Dan Reynolds, the University of California pathologist, sidled up to Numair. "Is this normal?" he queried. "They can probably get their teeth through that fence, you know. Has she had all her shots?"

Numair grinned; he couldn't help it. "Are you familiar with Daine's nickname?" he inquired. Dan shook his head. "She's called 'Beast Whisperer' at home," he explained. "Just watch. It's all right—she's perfectly safe."

Their progress around the zoo was much slower than Laura and Pritha must have expected, as the group had to halt at each animal enclosure for assorted rituals of greeting. On the other hand, Numair reflected, they certainly saw more animals, and closer to, than they would ever have done without Daine in their party. And, of course, they were nearly all vets or wildlife biologists; even those who had initially been frightened were soon hovering at her elbow, asking, "How do you do that?"

Numair had a feeling that Wednesday's meeting was going to be very interesting indeed.

* * *

"No, I really can't," Daine said, for at least the hundredth time since Tuesday morning. She was feeling quite exasperated. "It isn't something anyone can teach—no one taught it me, either, I was born this way." 

"But you teach, don't you?" Laurel inquired. "What do you teach your students?"

_Finally, a _sensible_ question!_ "Animal behaviour," Daine began, ticking off points on her fingers. "How animals behave, and why they behave that way, and what different behaviours mean. How animals relate to people, and vice versa. How they can help a sick or hurt beast feel safe enough to allow an examination. All that sort of thing."

"Well, then."

* * *

"Nu_mair_, hurry _up!_" Daine stood outside the door of their room, looking at her watch. "They're coming to collect us in five minutes!" Greg and Bruce had invited them to dinner at a highly recommended Indian restaurant downtown, and she was ravenous. 

"And it'll take no more than two for us to get downstairs," was the imperturbable reply.

"You're not brushing your hair _again_, are you?"

"Certainly not!" This time Numair sounded indignant. There was a pause, then, "I'm changing my tie."

Daine laughed. Then something occurred to her, and she stepped back into the room, letting the heavy door swing shut behind her. "'Mair, d'you think Bruce and Greg might be …" her voice trailed off.

Numair, tie at last adjusted to his satisfaction, turned away from the mirror. "Together, you mean?" he asked. Daine nodded. "Well, yes, of course they are. Hadn't you noticed?"

"But they …" he looked at her, and she could see that he was beginning to misinterpret her surprise. "They live on opposite sides of a continent," she explained. "A _huge _continent. How do they bear it? We couldn't. _I _couldn't."

Numair shrugged. "We're lucky," he pointed out. Then he glanced at his own watch. "Now, come along," he admonished. "We don't want to keep our hosts waiting."

* * *

"What are you two up to this weekend?" Greg asked over the malai kofta, dhal, saag paneer and tandoori fish with rice and naan. "Still avoiding the Stampede?" 

Numair had his mouth full, so Daine replied, between bites, "We're going to hire a car and drive out to Drumheller. Numair's dying to see this palaeontology museum they've got there."

"But you're not?" Bruce guessed, winking at her.

Daine gave her husband's arm a playful squeeze. "I'm sure I'll have a lovely time. It's just that I prefer beasties with more flesh on their bones. This food is heavenly, by the way."

Numair, still chewing, nodded in agreement.

"We did the Tyrrell Museum last weekend," Greg said. "It's fantastic. Especially the Devonian Reef and the Burgess Shale."

"You mean the extinct marine wildlife," Bruce teased him. "Don't mind him," he added, looking at Numair and Daine. "He can't help it—he's obsessed with things that swim."

"_Déformation professionnelle,_" Numair nodded.

"Occupational hazard," Daine translated. "More or less. Do speak English, 'Mair."

"So how long have you two been married?" Greg asked, with a grin.

"Five years and two months," Numair said after a moment.

"But we lived together for, em, two and a half years before he talked me round," Daine added cheerfully. "So really it's nearer eight."

"No kids?" Bruce asked.

The casual question caught Daine off guard, and she was astounded to discover that she had not thought about babies, or pregnancy, or where she was in her cycle, for … she could not, in fact, remember how long it had been.

Now she thought, and the thought was crushing. "Excuse me a minute," she said thickly, pushing back her chair and trying not to fall with it. _I won't throw a wobbler in front of colleagues. I won't, I won't, I _won't. She didn't dare look back at Numair, knowing he would be gazing after her with brows knit in concern, or trying to reassure their hosts, or both together; she couldn't work out whether it would be worse if he came after her or if he didn't.

Out on the pavement, she stood for a moment gulping the warm, fragrant evening air before sitting down, hard, against a tree. The tears came, then, in a hot despairing tide, though she squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her fists and held her breath in an effort to suppress them.

* * *

"Do they think I'm mad?" 

"No, love, of course not. They think they upset you, and they're terribly remorseful."

"I'm not sure that's any better."

"Possibly not."

"Do _you_ think I'm mad?"

"Sweetheart, you know I—"

"Never mind. I don't suppose you'd tell me if you did."

"That's a bit unfair."

Daine turned in her husband's arms and looked at him searchingly—or so it seemed to him in the moonlit dark. He shifted in order to kiss her forehead. Swallowed hard to quell the rising panic in his throat. "Daine," he began, "love, we've got to—"

"Talk about this," she finished for him.

"Yes."

"It's my fault we haven't done. You've tried, I know, and I only go all weepy and catatonic. No—" she stilled his protests with a small hand over his mouth. "Let me finish, please. I've been thinking, tonight … maybe … maybe we ought to stop. Accept it. Enjoy …" he heard her voice catch. "Enjoy our freedom."

"Is that what you want?" he asked gently.

"You know it isn't," she whispered against his chest. "Only I'm so tired of feeling so desperate about it. I'm fed up with hating my body for not doing what it's meant to do, and I'm fed up with people sympathizing, and I'm fed up with wanting to snatch people's babies because they aren't looking after them the way I would, and I'm _especially_ fed up with bursting into tears half a dozen times a day. That isn't me, and I hate it, 'Mair, I can't _bear _myself sometimes."

There must be something he could say to this—something helpful, something reassuring, something _right—_but whatever it was, he couldn't think of it. Instead he held her close, trying to stroke away the tension along her spine.

"What I keep thinking," she said after a moment, "is how _ironic_ this is. I mean, it's funny really."

"How so?"

"My mum, I mean. She made a stupid mistake when she was sixteen and finished up with a fatherless baby she didn't want, and here's me …"

"I think you're wrong, you know."

"About what?"

"About your mother. She may have made a mistake—though I'm not convinced—but certainly she wanted you. She _loved_ you, Daine, and your grandfather, too. You know that."

Daine whispered something he couldn't make out.

"What was that, love?" he asked her gently, and she raised her head a little. "I miss my mum," she repeated.

Numair tightened his arms around her. "I know," he whispered into her hair.

* * *

The attendant at Thrifty Car Rental looked Numair up and down, frankly dubious, as she handed him the keys to a Hyundai Accent at seven-thirty on Saturday morning. 

"Don't worry about him," Daine said brightly. "He's tall, but he folds up nicely. When I met him, he was driving a Mini."

The attendant giggled; Numair glared at his wife in mock annoyance, but she could feel his relief at her improved mood.

They shared the early-morning drive out into the Badlands, a bizarre landscape of low, scrubby vegetation, steep cliffs and odd formations of reddish-striped sedimentary rock, bisected by two-lane highways so little used that, in places, it was dangerously easy to forget which side of the road was which.

"Your turn," Daine said in exasperation after drifting to the left for the third time in half an hour. She pulled the car onto the shoulder, clambered into the passenger seat as Numair got out to walk round to the driving side, shifted the seat forward some eight inches and put her head out the open window. "Don't forget to belt up," he reminded her.

What Daine persisted in calling "the dinosaur museum" was as spectacular as promised, and, once inside, she was rather glad they had booked a bed-and-breakfast room in Drumheller for the night. There was certainly more to see than they could easily have managed in one day; she didn't fancy staying the full twelve hours until nine-o'clock closing, but nor, she could see, would there have been any possibility of dragging Numair away any earlier, had they not been returning in the morning.

The existing overnight booking was also helpful in persuading him to forgo the overnight fossil-hunting trek in favour of a more reasonable (in her view) ninety-minute walking tour of dig sites in the Badlands. She was not at all surprised when the battery on Numair's digital camera packed up halfway back.

* * *

They ate their supper at an uninspiring and inauthentic Chinese restaurant and wandered back to their bed-and-breakfast through the still-bright evening, hand in hand, talking of nothing in particular. 

"About last night," Daine said suddenly, then stopped.

Numair squeezed her hand.

"It was a shock. I hadn't thought about it, any of it, since … I don't know, really. At least since we've been here."

"I wondered," he said. "You've been …"

"More myself. I know."

"Happier, I was going to say."

"Easier to bear."

Numair stopped in his tracks. "Daine, _really_." His tone was severe. "No, don't apologize. But you ought to know better. I married _you_, after all, not you in your better moods."

But he had been more himself here, too, he knew—had been, in other words, more than a bundle of jangled nerves dreading the next crisis. It was this—not work at all—from which they had both needed a holiday.

Daine leaned against him with a sigh of absolute exhaustion. "I love you, 'Mair," she said. "I'm sorry I've been such a misery. It must be PMT, I think. I'm _so_ tired I can hardly see straight."

"Come along, then." One arm around her shoulders, he bent to slide the other around her knees, then lifted her off her feet, grinning at her breathless whoop of protest.

It took only five minutes to walk the rest of the way back, but by the time they reached their destination she had gone fast asleep.

* * *

The curriculum committee wrapped up formally on Monday afternoon, with a ceremony of thanks from the Faculty and the University, and informally on Monday evening with an elaborate, delicious and uproarious dinner at a local restaurant (arranged by Amy, whose family, she said, had been eating there since she was a child). 

"I can't believe we've been here two weeks already," Daine marvelled, between mouthfuls of Chinese broccoli in garlic sauce. Somehow the weekend's emotional crisis seemed to have cleared her head, and she felt well disposed toward the world and everyone in it.

"And tomorrow you're off to the mountains, right?" asked Amy from across the table. "How're you getting up there?"

"I'm going to drive them," said Sandy. "I'm going back up to Banff anyway, and that way they don't have to rent a car."

"You guys are really going to do this ten-day backpacking thing?" said Amy doubtfully. "It sounds like a lot of work." Amy, Daine had guessed early on, was not enthusiastic about holidays that did not include hot showers and indoor toilets.

"Ten days is nothing," she said cheerfully. From the other of the two large round tables occupied by their party, she heard Numair laugh heartily at something someone else had said. "At home we used to stay in the field for weeks in the summer. Before I went to work for the Zoo, I mean. And let me tell you, you've not seen wilderness till you've spent three weeks in the Outer Hebrides …"

* * *

**From: **Trebond-Cooper, Alanna  
**To: **Sarrasri, Daine  
**Subject:** RE: Incommunicado  
Hello, Daine,  
No, nothing to report here. I must say, Aly does seem to be coping very well—I'm rather proud of her. (Her hair, however, is still blue.) I shall keep an eye out while you're out of touch, though.  
So you're really going to spend your holiday dragging heavy equipment about at high altitudes, are you? Rather you than me. But, of course, one forgets that you and Numair actually enjoy that sort of thing.  
Have a lovely time, and don't get into any trouble, either of you. You know what I mean.  
Cheers,  
Alanna

* * *

**A/N: **"PMT", for those who don't know, is the UK equivalent of "PMS".  



	6. Chapter 6

**A/N:** Here's the next chapter! Thanks to all who reviewed the last one :). Love the lovely reviews!

**Disclaimer: **Daine & Numair: Tamora Pierce's. Laurel, Sandy & Jim: mine (again, loosely composed from bits of real people). Plot: a bizarre admixture of TP's and mine ... getting tough to tell at this point. Basically, if you recognize it from elsewhere, it obviously isn't my invention!

**

* * *

Chapter 6: Calgary, Banff, Rockies, 17–20 July**

Early on Tuesday morning, having sent Numair off with Sandy to collect the camping gear from the Outdoor Program Centre on campus, Daine gathered all their belongings and began dividing them into two heaps—Things We Need on top of the bed, and Things We Don't Need on the floor—preparatory to stowing the latter in the now-empty suitcase and packing the former ready to go, with the aforementioned equipment and the food supplies in paper sacks on the dressing-table, into the rucksacks.

She worked cheerfully and methodically, humming to herself. She was tired, but she smiled often as, moving about the room, she noticed something that reminded her of the previous night.

It had seemed silly, when they had only one more night to spend in possession of such a lovely, soft bed, to waste all of it sleeping.

Daine had been at her task for three-quarters of an hour, and had just zipped up the suitcase and moved on to rolling articles of clothing into tight, space-saving cylinders, when someone knocked on the door.

"Come in!" she called, assuming it was Numair and Sandy back again.

"No key," someone called back.

Daine put down the enormous World Wildlife Fund t-shirt she was rolling up and went to open the door.

"I came by to say goodbye," said Laurel. "I have to leave for the airport in a couple of hours, and I didn't want to miss you. It's been such a pleasure working with you—I hope we'll get to do it again someday."

"I—me, too," Daine said. "You're going back straight away?" she asked, and then felt stupid.

"Well, you know." Laurel shrugged. "I've been here for two weeks. The hubby and kids miss me." A wink told Daine the feeling was mutual. "And I've got this elephant at home—at the Zoo, I mean—coming up on her twenty-second month. She hasn't had any problems so far, touch wood, but it's her first pregnancy as far as we know, and the father's enormous and Khaja's pretty small, so we're a bit worried about CPD—"

She stopped talking to stare at Daine, whose jaw had dropped in astonishment.

"Khaja, did you say?" Daine repeated. "Indian elephant, youngish, came to you two years ago or so from a private zoo in a small Middle Eastern country you'd never heard of?"

Laurel nodded. "How the heck did you know that?" she asked. "The acquisition wasn't publicized much—I didn't think anybody knew where she came from."

"I didn't," said Daine. "I know _her_. Khaja. Your elephant."

"You _do_?" Laurel stared harder. "How? From where?"

"It's a long story. The short version is, she saved my life once, and Numair's."

"Really."

"Yes, really. And I know someone you work with—Jack Taves?—from the feline VIN. His must've been one of the names I gave Kaddar." Laurel looked less than enlightened by this attempt at clarification; but Daine was too busy searching the room for her mobile to notice. At last she found it (under a large pair of woolly socks) and scrolled through the numbers to Numair's. "How much will it cost to change our tickets?" she demanded, breathless, almost before he had picked up. "I want to stop in Toronto on the way home. You'll never guess who's living in Laurel's zoo!"

* * *

There were more farewells in the hotel's small lobby as the out-of-town committee members, and assorted companions thereof, prepared to go their separate ways. 

"Don't let him make any hotel reservations," Laurel admonished, eyeing Numair, who was half-hidden behind a potted palm, talking rapidly into his mobile. "If you're coming at all, you're staying with me. Us. Ben and Emma would never forgive me if I deprived them of such exciting houseguests."

"They're in for a disappointment when they meet us, I'm afraid," Daine replied. "But we _are_ coming, even if it means selling the car on eBay when we get home."

"I don't think there'll be any need for that, love." Numair's voice was tinged with laughter as he came up behind her. "I've just rung the airline to change the tickets, and they've only charged us fifty dollars per, which I think works out to fifty pounds all in."

"My bike, then."

"Silly goose."

"So you are coming, then? Terrific!" Laurel grinned and dug her BlackBerry out of her bag. "When?"

"The second of August," said Numair, "at seven forty-five in the evening."

An hour later, thoroughly hugged and with hands thoroughly shaken, Daine and Numair, with Sandy and her colleague, Jim, piled into Sandy's Parks Canada truck and set off.

"Don't let me forget to stop for gas on the way out of town," Sandy said.

But Numair and Jim (who had not had any coffee that morning) were too sleepy to pay much attention, and Daine, her head half out of the rear passenger-side window, didn't hear her at all.

* * *

As they approached the city limits, Sandy shifted smoothly from yet another lecture on back-country safety and protocol into tour-guide mode, pointing out the ski-jump venue from the 1988 Winter Olympics on the left and bemoaning the increasing spread of new "subdivisions" (which seemed to mean housing estates) on the right. "Ten years ago this was all still farms and pastureland," she commented mournfully. 

Daine, who had tuned out the park-safety lecture, was paying more attention now. Not quite half an hour into their journey, the crowded, treeless housing estates at last began to give way to farms and pastures, and she caught her breath at the sight—green and gold and brown and brilliant yellow, trees and fields and gentle hills, seemed to stretch for leagues in either direction. Sandy, spotting her passenger's expression in the rear-view mirror, grinned. "It's quite something, isn't it?" she said happily. "Look up ahead, though—if you can see around that oversized husband of yours, that is."

Numair mumbled a sleepy protest, then woke more fully when Daine, leaning forward slightly, gave his shoulder a little shake. "You ought to see this, 'Mair," she said.

Then, head craned on one side to give her a view around his seat and the window-frame, she gave herself up to admiration of the westward view.

Half an hour later, the highway was winding between stands of mixed trees, the mountains looming around them to the north, west, and south. Numair, who had made a study of the province's flora and fauna, was amusing himself (and beginning to irritate everyone else) by identifying plant and tree species as they passed: "Poplar … trembling aspen," he muttered. "Blue spruce—no—_black_ spruce. Lodgepole pine. Henbane … horsetail fern … oh, look, vetkin!" he exclaimed. "Fireweed! See?"

She looked, as best she could from the window of a moving vehicle, and frowned at the stands of tall green topped by conical spikes of pink flowers. "Rosebay willowherb, you mean," she said.

"_Epilobium angustifolium_, yes," he said. "It's called 'fireweed,' here, because it's the pioneer growth after a wildfire. And it's also the … em … I was going to say the provincial flower of the Yukon Territory, but that can't be right, as it isn't a province …"

"Territorial flower," Sandy said, taking pity on him. In the mirror, her eyes met Daine's with a _rather you than me!_ expression.

They had just passed a turn-off labelled "Exshaw" when Sandy glanced down at the dashboard and made a sort of strangled noise.

"What's the matter?" Numair asked, frowning in concern.

"No one reminded me about filling the gas tank on the way out of town," she accused. It sounded to Daine as though she were not sure whether to laugh or weep.

"It's okay," Jim reassured her. "I'm sure we can make it to Dead Man's Flats …"

"Is that meant to be a _good_ thing?" Daine inquired. "Only it sounds rather dire."

"It's the first gas station on the TransCanada between Calgary and Canmore," Jim explained.

"And it's about … twelve more kilometres from here," Sandy added. "And the gas gauge is already on Empty. So everybody better cross their fingers that we don't end up having to push this thing the rest of the way there."

They all did so—not (Daine told herself privately) that one was superstitious, but, after all, one never knew.

Whether through judicious finger-crossing or some other means, they did at last turn, with considerable relief all round, into the motorway services at the unfortunately named Dead Man's Flats, and thence into a petrol station, Husky by name. Sandy got out to fill the gas tank, and everyone else to stretch their legs.

When she put the nozzle back into the petrol pump, Sandy looked rather pale. "I just put in eighty-five litres," she said.

"Wow," said Jim, looking awed. He gave the truck a little pat.

Daine and Numair, assuming they were meant to be impressed by its capacity, echoed him.

"You don't understand," Sandy told them. "It's an eighty-litre tank. I don't know how long we've been running on fumes."

* * *

They rattled over an arrangement of horizontal bars in the road that Jim explained was called a Texas Gate and was intended to keep cattle from roaming, and after a brief excursion through tall trees and other, more unexpected scenery ("Was that a _skateboard park_?" Daine whispered to Jim. "I'm afraid so," he said dejectedly. "Tourists, you know.") they found themselves in the town of Banff. To Daine's delight, all the streets were named for native animals: Gopher, Lynx, Squirrel, Rabbit, Fox … 

"Jim and I have to check in," Sandy said, parking the truck on Marmot Street and indicating the Park Warden office on the other side of the railroad track. "Jim can show you around a bit, and when I'm done we'll drop you at your campsite—where are you tonight, again?"

"Two Jack Lakeside," Numair said. "Then Johnston Canyon tomorrow night, and Lake Louise the night after, and then Mosquito Creek, and …"

"That's a lot of hiking before you even get into the back country," Jim pointed out. "Are you sure—"

"Don't bother." Sandy gave him a rueful grimace. "I've tried to talk them out of it, but apparently this is their hearts' desire." Then she grinned at Numair and Daine: "Just remember, cell phones don't work in the back country, so if you change your mind and need a lift back to town, call me _before_ you leave Mosquito Creek."

* * *

The hired gear was unfamiliar, and there were a few missteps and false starts before they regained their usual smooth camp-pitching rhythm. Numair could not at first work out how to connect the miniature campstove ("Perfect for backpacking!") to its fuel source; Daine shut her hand in the door of the bear-proof locker in which she was storing the food they didn't need for their supper. By the time they had pitched the tent, rigged a tarp over the picnic table, and put a pot of water up to boil, however, the murmur of water and the scent of spruce and pine had begun to work their magic, and everything seemed, somehow, destined to work out well. 

Numair backed out of the tent, where he had been laying out the bedrolls, and straightened up, looking about for Daine. He spotted her standing at the edge of their campsite, her face to the woods and her hands clasped loosely behind her back. Stepping softly, in case she was conversing with some wild creature who might be spooked by his approach, he came up behind her and laid gentle hands on her shoulders.

"I've missed this," he said.

"Missed what?" Daine sounded confused, but not in the least startled. "You've never been here before, you said."

"Not _that_." He gestured at the surrounding landscape, then closed his arms around her: "_This_. Us. Outdoors, peace and quiet, no agenda."

"Oh," she said, and leaned back against his chest with a contented sigh. "Yes, so have I."

* * *

They awoke next morning (as predicted by Parks Canada's web site) to the sound of flowing water and chirping birds—some of which sounded very close indeed. "Whiskeyjack," Numair murmured sleepily. "Tree swallow." Daine smiled against her folded arms, wondering when on earth he had had time to learn a whole new set of birdcalls. 

Then, trying to shift a little, she realized that she was no longer alone in her bedroll.

"Well," she said after a moment. "_This_ hasn't happened for quite a long time."

Numair sat up, hunching over so as not to distort the shape of the tent. "What hasn't?" he asked.

Daine held up a hand in their old signal for quiet and, very cautiously, lifted the top edge of her bag and peered in. Most of her new bedmates were certainly ground squirrels; there also seemed to be a chipmunk or two. The rest, in such poor light and at such an awkward angle, she couldn't quite identify.

Very slowly and carefully she extricated herself from the sleeping bag and its other occupants and crawled out of the tent into the chilly early-morning sunshine. Numair followed after a moment, pointing out to her, with one eyebrow raised, that she hadn't had to unzip the tent flap on her way out.

"Don't look at me," she retorted. "You were last in yesterday." This was, strictly speaking, true; Daine was sure it had been well after midnight when she had left the tent for a middle-of-the-night wee and, in all probability, forgotten to close the door behind her on returning.

* * *

"You said 'this hasn't happened for quite a long time,'" Numair remarked later, as they sat spooning porridge into themselves and enjoying the music supplied by the several dozen wild birds perched on tree limbs around their campsite. While preparing their breakfast they had watched four ground squirrels, two chipmunks, a hoary marmot, and several deer mice emerge from their tent and wander away. "When did it happen before?" 

Daine looked down, swirling the dregs of her tea around in her mug. "Well, always," she said at last. "When we were out in the field, that is. Until …"

"Until?"

"Well … until the summer I was twenty." She looked up at him and discovered, to her amusement, that he was blushing. "Canadian animals are obviously … bolder."

"You mustn't generalize from one experience, you know, vetkin."

"Well, in the service of science, I'm quite happy to sleep with the tent-flap open for the next fortnight, but—"

Moving more quickly than she would have thought possible so early in the morning, Numair levered himself out of his seat, rounded the end of the table and slid in beside her, one arm round her shoulders and the other behind her head, turning Daine's startled face to his. "In that case," he growled softly, "we shall have to make good use of the daylight hours."

* * *

Shortly after noon on Friday, Daine called a halt for lunch. Since leaving the Lake Louise campground, they had now been walking along the shoulder of the Icefields Parkway for some hours, sometimes talking of inconsequential things but more often simply enjoying everything around them—except, of course, the passing cars. Still, there were fewer of these than they had expected. 

Although in the past they had always taken it in turns to set the pace when walking or cycling long distances, on this journey Numair was leaving all the pace-setting to Daine; he had noticed two days ago, the first and only time he had taken the lead, that she was finding it difficult to keep up with him, though he was quite certain his pace was no faster than usual—he had, in fact, consciously taken it easy, aware that both of them were unused to such extreme elevations and that the going would only get harder as they progressed. Daine gave no sign that she had noticed his solicitude, instead choosing to behave as though they had always done things this way.

Their wildlife sightings thus far had been spectacular. There was this to be said for travelling with Daine—and Numair was amused, now, by the length of time it had taken him to realize it, in the early days of their acquaintance—that where other animal-spotters saw one animal, you would see ten or fifteen. The variety of small members of the rodent and weasel families that had visited their campsites was quite astonishing—everything from shrews, mice and voles to badgers and martens had found its way into their tent over the past three nights, not to mention the mercifully brief visits of a fully grown porcupine and a family of skunks. On the trails and along the highways they had met bighorn sheep, mountain goats, mule deer and even one or two elk. They had not, however—to Daine's disappointment—met with any large carnivores.

Not yet.

They had got out their canteens, and Daine had produced from her pack two apples and a bag of mixed nuts and dried fruit contributed by Sandy, who called it "gorp," and they had settled down amongst the tall grass and wildflowers to eat, when they were interrupted by an ear-shattering roar. They leapt to their feet, staring wildly around them.

A gold-brown shape streaked out of the woods—reminding Numair, disorientingly, of Griffin—and skidded to a halt directly in front of Daine, thus revealing itself to be a huge golden-brown cat with black-tufted ears, white throat and vivid golden eyes. "_Felis concolor_," Numair breathed, awed. He wondered if he could get out his camera without frightening it away.

"_Run_," said Daine, stuffing food into the top of her pack and scrambling to re-shoulder it.

"What?"

"Something's coming, something—bad," she said urgently. "She says we need to get away from here—" a jerk of her head toward the cougar— "and I'd rather not hang about to find out why."

Numair hoisted his own gear, and their canteens, and grabbed her hand. "Where?" he demanded, towing his wife toward the shoulder of the highway. "Where does she say we should go?"

The cougar had already fled—in which direction, he had no idea.

Daine shook her head. "She didn't. Just … away," she panted. "Over the road's a good start, I should think."

They dashed across, blessing the sparse traffic. On the other side they stumbled down the slope and collapsed, breathing hard, into the wide, grassy ditch.

Again they heard that deep, shattering roar—nearer this time, and louder. Numair, cautiously raising his head to road level, was just in time to see the huge, staggering grizzly break through the trees.

* * *

**A/N: **CPD cephalo-pelvic disproportion (baby's head is too big for mum's pelvis). I have no idea if this is something elephants actually suffer from -- it was just a convenient thing for Laurel to be worried about :). VIN Veterinary Information Network (like the Dancing Dove for vets ;).  



	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:** I'm really not too sure about this chapter. But it is done, so I'm posting it, because until I do I won't be able to work properly on the next one. Thanks for the reviews, guys! Keep 'em coming:)

**Disclaimer:** Tamora Pierce's characters are hers; if you recognize somebody from a Tortall book, s/he isn't my invention. Bits of plot are also TP's, randomly reinserted where I felt like it.

**

* * *

Chapter 7: Mosquito Creek, Back Country, 20–24 July**

Daine crouched in the ditch on the west side of the Icefields Parkway, staring across the road. The great shambling bear had reared up on his hindquarters, presumably to look more imposing—an effort which, it must be said, was hugely successful. He must, she thought, awed and more than a little intimidated, be well over two metres tall, and in his prime had probably weighed close to seven hundred kilos.

He was in his prime no longer. He roared and raged as one angry and in pain; he snapped his huge jaws at something Daine could not see; he slavered and stared and pawed at his muzzle. This bear was clearly very ill indeed. _Rabies_, she thought, _or distemper … do grizzly bears get distemper?_

And then, as the bear lunged threateningly in their direction, _Of all the times not to have a tranquilliser gun._ She had never needed such a thing before, certainly, but, had one been offered her on this occasion, she would have accepted it with alacrity.

As her mind raced, her hands were scrabbling in the pockets of her rucksack for her mobile, into which she had programmed Sandy's number, and Jim's, and the land-line number to reach the Park Wardens.

"I think it's making up its mind to cross the road." Numair's voice, from somewhere above her head, was determinedly calm, but where his arm rested along her shoulders she could feel his pulse racing.

"He," she said, her eyes on the bear.

"Daine—"

"Yes, I know. Not much to the purpose. Have you got your mobile?"

"I have. Assuming it works from here."

Daine had been trying not to think about that. "You ring Sandy," she said firmly, "and I'll ring the Park Warden number." Even as she dialled the number and held the instrument to her ear, she was concentrating on the bear: trying, despite the distance between them, both to calm and reassure him and to warn him away from their side of the road.

Numair's call was answered first, and she heard him speaking to Sandy in brief, terse phrases. Cars and trucks and even a camper-van sped by, and she was half relieved, half annoyed, that not one of them stopped. When at last an unknown man's voice said, into her other ear, "Park Warden's station, how may I assist you?" she almost shouted with relief.

It took some time to explain the situation; Daine did not sound terrified enough, she supposed, to be a tourist confronted by a rabid grizzly, and the person on the other end of the phone had no way to evaluate the accuracy of her diagnosis or, indeed, to verify that she was qualified to make one. He seemed dangerously disposed to repeat Sandy's lecture on bear safety rather than do anything useful. Daine was clarifying for the third time her estimate of the distance that separated them from the bear, and beginning to lose patience, when the beast let out his most thunderous roar yet.

For a long moment there was silence down the phone. Then, "I'm dispatching people from the nearest stations, ma'am. They'll be there as soon as they can. Now, if the bear approaches you …"

* * *

Faster than Daine would have thought possible, Parks Canada trucks arrived from the north, then from the south, and disgorged a total of three men and two women equipped with satellite phones and – she shuddered, though she had known it would be like this – firearms. 

The road had been clear in both directions for some time; presumably their phone calls had triggered not only this armed response but also roadblocks at either end of this section of highway. Watching government employees shoot a rabid grizzly bear was not, Daine told herself rather bitterly, the sort of wildlife encounter most Park visitors probably wanted to have.

The nearest warden caught Daine's eye and motioned at her to stay put. Daine nodded, seeing, out of the corner of her eye, Numair doing the same.

The bear had not, despite the removal of the only possible obstacle, crossed the road; why it had not, and why instead it had stayed so long in a spot not particularly attractive in terms of water, food, or shade, were questions canvassed anxiously, in low voices, by the Parks staff. Daine and Numair exchanged looks: _Ought I to tell them something? _and _No, better not._

"You're right, it _is_ Old Brutus," someone said; "I'll be damned. Nobody's sighted him since last spring when his transmitter went dead." And Daine, squinting across the gap, realized that the oddly ruffled fur around the bear's neck, which had puzzled her, was caused by the fact that he was wearing a radio collar.

"Remember that encounter report, oh, about two weeks back?" said another of the newcomers. "Bear versus dogs, owner wasn't sure the dogs were up to date on their rabies shots?"

"Well, now we know," said a third, bitterly. "Bloody tourists."

Then he seemed to remember that there were tourists within earshot, and all five of them turned to look at Numair and Daine. "I'm a vet," Daine told them. "My husband's a wildlife biologist. You needn't bother reassuring us, or apologizing, or – or – or _whatever_. Just let's get on with it. He's suffered enough."

* * *

The wardens gave them a lift to the Mosquito Creek trailhead, their next destination, and helped them collect their Wilderness Pass and their allotment of plastic bags for packing out waste and garbage from the back country. 

When they had gone, Daine wept for some time over the fate of Old Brutus, and Numair held her tight and whispered soothingly into her hair, exactly as he had on the night, some eleven years earlier, that she and Onua had lost a horse under their care to a traffic accident.

When she was calmer, he lent her his handkerchief and offered what consolation he could. "There was no choice, really," he reminded her. "You can't treat rabies. He was too far gone—there was nothing else anyone could have done. If some other tripper had run against him before you did, there might have been more than one death." He knew better, of course, than to suggest to her (especially now) that a human death would have been worse than the bear's.

"I know all that," she said, sniffing a little. "Only none of it makes much difference just now."

"I know." Numair hesitated, searching for the right approach. "Dear heart, if you want to turn back …"

She might have berated him then, or stared as though he had lost his wits; instead she gave him a small, sad smile and said, "It's sweet of you to offer, but of course not."

"I know. But I had to ask."

"What would we do—sit about in an over-priced hotel room and fret about not having our laptops? Go round the shops and buy over-priced tourist rubbish?" He acknowledged the truth of this with a rueful smile. "Besides which," Daine went on, beginning to sound more like herself, "you know I always feel worse about things when I suspect I'm being mollycoddled."

This also was perfectly true.

"I'd like to know what happened to that cougar," she said after a moment. "We didn't thank her properly for warning us. It's a bad habit, you know."

* * *

They pitched their camp in silence. When they had finished, Daine made bannock while Numair fetched water, boiled it, and made soup and tea. After their rather morose supper, Daine stood up and began gathering dishes and cooking utensils to take to the pump for washing up. 

"Let me," Numair said. "Stay here and rest—you look all in."

"But it's my turn! And you fetched the water, and did most of the cooking—"

"Vetkin," he said, laughing, "the sun will rise tomorrow morning even if I cook and wash up on the same evening. Besides, if we're to set off as planned—"

"We are," Daine said firmly.

"Then the equipment check needs doing. If the idea of resting for half an hour is so dreadfully unappealing, you might begin on that, and I'll be back to help when I've done the washing up."

She put out her tongue at his retreating back, thinking simultaneously that he was the most exasperating person she had ever known and how utterly miserable she would have been without him.

* * *

"Long underwear?" 

"Here's yours, and …" a brief rummage. "Yes, here's mine. Check."

"Wool jumpers?"

"Check."

"Anoraks?"

"Check."

"Woolly hats? Gloves?"

"Check and check. No—hang on—those are socks. _There_ they are. Check again."

"Shorts? … I'm wearing mine. Though that doesn't seem as good an idea as it did this morning." Daine slapped at a mosquito on her calf. "This place is certainly aptly named." She ticked off _shorts_ on her list and moved on: "Trousers? Shirts?"

"Yes, here we are—trousers, large; trousers, diminutive; two shirts for me, two for you; knickers, yours, one, two, three—"

"Yes, yes, all right. Sandals?"

On they went, through extra socks, boots, tent and fly, sleeping-bags, ground sheet, tarp, ropes, campstove and fuel, cooking utensils, water filter, Wilderness Pass, compass, waterproof matches, first-aid kit, sunscreen, signalling mirror, sunglasses, trail guide, pocket knife, water bottles, toilet paper, candles, notebooks and pencils, camera, toothbrushes and toothpaste, torch …

"Field guide?"

Numair extracted a small, dog-eared book from his shirt pocket and two larger ones from a pocket on the side of his rucksack and held them up.

"Yes, of course I meant field _guides_, plural." Daine rolled her eyes, but she was chuckling. "Maps? Oh—I've got those, actually." She rummaged in one pocket, then another, and eventually produced the cardboard cylinder that contained their 1:50,000-scale topographic maps of Banff National Park and the parks that bordered it. "That's everything, then, I think. D'you know …" she paused reflectively.

"Penny for them, love?" Numair asked after a moment.

"Next summer, I'm going to take all my holidays so we can go out in the field again. Just us, the way we used to. Somewhere wild—the Orkneys, or …"

He smiled, understanding. "If you still feel the same in ten days' time, we'll 'clap hands and a bargain,'" he promised.

* * *

Daine woke just after sunrise when what turned out to be a family of marmots began chasing one another noisily around the outside of the tent (which Numair had zipped shut the previous evening to keep out the mosquitoes). She put her head out of the tent to scold them, then, when they had gone, put on her sandals and emerged into the grey dawn, yawning and stretching. _Last chance of a flush toilet for the next ten days,_ she reminded herself, and set off. 

Numair was still asleep when she returned to their campsite, and, deciding to leave him be for the moment, she went about the usual morning chores: retrieving the food bags from the bear-proof locker, starting the campstove, fetching water to boil for tea and porridge. When the pot was on the stove, she sat atop the picnic table with her arms round her knees, staring up at the rugged cliffs to the southeast. _A little wilder than the Outer Hebrides, after all._

By eight o'clock, when Numair at last made his appearance, Daine had packed up nearly everything apart from the tent and his bedroll. He looked rather mutinous at having missed the morning tea; she let him mutter about it for a moment or two before handing him the thermos flask, still nearly full.

"You do know how to make a man happy, vetkin," he said, pouring tea.

"Really." Daine raised a sceptical eyebrow. "That's all it takes, is it – morning tea? I'll have to remember that. And don't think I'm going to strike the tent for you, either."

"I should never presume so far, dear lady." Numair tried out an elaborate bow, which made Daine giggle. "Your humble servant will of course take charge of the tent and its accoutrements. As soon," he added, dropping the deferential tone, "as I've drunk my tea."

* * *

The weather, mild when they set out each morning, grew punishingly hot by noon. 

The first leg of their route followed Mosquito Creek toward the Fish Lakes, and the insect life was as vigorous as ever. "Ye gods, what was _that_?" Numair exclaimed, squatting down to peer at the creature which had just taken a visible bite out of his arm. He had whacked it with one of Daine's sandals, knocking it to the ground, but it was still buzzing angrily.

Daine crouched down to look. "Horsefly," she said. "They have those tough jaws to bite through horses' hide – and deer and cattle and so on. Next time I'd advise getting it before it gets you." She trod on the offender until it stopped moving. "Now," she went on, "let's get on. At least then we'll be a moving target."

They pitched camp on Saturday evening at the Fish Lakes site, and on Sunday morning their trail continued east for a few kilometres before striking north along the Pipestone River toward the Clearwater Pass. Monday morning saw them passing the Devon Lakes to the south, with the bulk of Clearwater Mountain on their left. They met very few other walkers and, after the first two days, none at all.

The going was often difficult; the trail was broken by what the trail guide cheerfully described as "scrambles," for which Daine more than once complained that they ought to have brought climbing gear. The air was thin up here, and she found herself setting the pace slower and slower. More and more, too, traitorous thoughts of packing it in floated to the front of her mind; but each time the next scramble, the next turning in the trail, laid before them some new and stupefyingly beautiful vista, and breathless awe made her forget how bone-weary she was.

By the time they made camp on Monday evening, however, she strongly suspected – though she refused to admit it to Numair – that she had got in over her head.

"Daine," he said gently, catching her as she passed him with an armful of ropes and tarp. "Sweetheart, are you all right?"

"Yes!" Daine replied, too sharply; then, thinking better of it, "I'm fine, 'Mair. Why d'you ask?"

"You seem …" He hesitated, not quite meeting her eyes. "Tired. Worn out. I suspect the altitude doesn't agree with you, and … I wonder whether it's wise to keep on. This is meant to be a holiday, after all, not some sort of endurance test."

She glared up at him. "Haven't I told you not to mollycoddle me?" she demanded. "If I want to turn back, I'll say so. Until then, I'll thank you to leave me be."

Turning on her heel, she stomped off to put up the cooking shelter, already regretting having lost her temper and wondering what was the matter with her that she was behaving like a stubborn, idiotic teenager. _We ought to turn back, and we both know it._

* * *

Supper was an uncomfortable meal, eaten mostly in silence under a suddenly overcast sky. Numair having cooked, Daine refused any assistance with the washing up, though the stringent minimum-impact camping guidelines in force in this area of the park – in particular, the requirement to strain out all food particles from wash water – made this a difficult task for only two hands. As soon as she had finished, she crawled into the tent, pulled off her boots, and, sprawled across both bedrolls, fell asleep almost instantly. 

She slept fitfully, and her dreams were fragmentary and unpleasant, leaving her with a nagging feeling that, somewhere, something was wrong and that, somehow, she had to put it right. It was exasperating to have no idea what any of it meant.

When she woke – firmly zipped into her own sleeping-bag, but nevertheless feeling chilled to the bone – it was dawn, but the quality of the light, the taste and feel of the air, were not those she had become used to over the past week. She glanced at Numair (or, rather, at the part of him she could see: a shock of dark hair protruding from the top of his sleeping-bag), feeling both indignant and remorseful, and did her bestnot to wake himas she crept to the front of the tent and unzipped the flap.

At once she saw what was wrong with the light, what had changed the taste of the air: while they slept, the previous evening's innocent-looking clouds had unburdened themselves of some six inches of heavy, wet snow.

* * *

**A/N: **I realized while writing chapter 8 that I had got the dates wrong on this chapter -- it ends Tuesday morning, not Monday night. Nothing else has been changed. 


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N:** This fic keeps getting longer and longer. It was supposed to be a lot shorter than _Scientist King_, but that's looking increasingly unlikely. But, anyway, here's the next chapter -- enjoy!

As always, I really appreciate the reviews -- please review some more:)

**Update A/N:** I had barely posted this when I noticed the timing problems. They are now fixed, as best I could manage. Sorry about that.

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* * *

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**Chapter 8: Back Country, 24–25 July**

Daine's first reaction – she was rather ashamed of it – was relief: _We can't walk anywhere in that. We'll have to stay put till it melts, and have a rest. _She was sure now that a short rest was all she needed; yesterday's pessimism had been simply a product of fatigue and her annoyance with Numair.

_Numair_. She sighed loudly. She ought to wake him and tell him about the snow; he would be fascinated, would want to take photos of it before it melted, and make notes about the weather that had preceded it, and (for all she knew) keep a sample of it so that he could later analyse its trace-mineral signature, or some such exercise.

And if she got tired of that – Daine grinned suddenly, and was surprised at how much better it made her feel – she could always pester him into a snowball fight.

"'Mair!" she scooted back into the tent and shook him gently by the shoulder. "'Mair, come and see this!"

* * *

While Numair was outside, exclaiming at the snow on the ground and the brilliantly blue sky overhead, Daine (who was much less inclined to go out in the snow in shorts and a t-shirt) rummaged in her pack for her jeans, long-johns and woollen jumper. She pulled the jumper over her head and then, feeling warmer already, stripped off the shorts and knickers she had slept in – and made an unpleasant discovery. 

"Oh, well," she muttered resignedly, digging out the packet of Tampax she had brought in anticipation of just this circumstance. "At least now I've got an explanation for the water retention, and the tempers, and the being tired."

When she re-emerged into the bright sunshine – she must, she realized, have slept much later than she had initially supposed – she was trying hard not to appear dejected. Numair turned round, shivering a little but wearing a broad grin; he sobered abruptly when he saw her and asked, "What is it, love? What's happened?"

Daine shrugged. "Nothing," she said. "I'm just a bit worried about how Aly's getting on with the beasties. You know how Griffin—"

"Griffin generally likes Aly considerably better than he likes me," Numair interrupted. "I'm sure they're all getting on just fine. What is it really that's bothering you?"

She ought to have known better, really; she never could put him off when he took it into his head to ferret something out of her. Wordlessly she turned back to the tent, ducked inside and came out again brandishing the freshly opened packet of Tampax.

"Oh," he said. Daine felt her nose tingle, the hated tears fighting to escape: he sounded even more unhappy than she felt. "I'm sorry, love …"

"Don't." She shook her head at him, scrubbing at her damp eyes with one hand. "Just … don't. There's nothing to be done about it, except to try and think about something else. Tell me …" she looked around at the snow-blanketed campsite, the dripping trees, the spiky shapes of grasses thrusting up through their damp white coverlet. "Tell me about whatever snow-ology it is you've been doing out here."

* * *

By mid-afternoon nearly all the snow had disappeared, leaving the ground underfoot squashy and everything else unpleasantly damp. The earth steamed a little in the afternoon sun, and the nearby river, swollen with snowmelt, was loud in the travellers' ears. 

"Not much use in setting off again now, I suppose," Daine said gloomily. She was pacing back and forth across the campsite, and fretting. The feeling she had had during the night, of some unknown _wrong thing_ that she needed to put right, had been nagging at her all day; she had tried valiantly to convince herself that the feeling meant nothing – that she was simply frustrated by their enforced inactivity, was depressed about the bear, was imagining things – but to no avail. Yesterday at this time she had been ready to drop from exhaustion; now she felt she would go mad if she couldn't go _somewhere _and do _something_ about … whatever it was.

"I suppose not," Numair agreed. "Still, it's probably just as well we've had this day to rest—"

"I don't _want_ any more rest!" Daine burst out, completely forgetting that she had voiced almost exactly the same thought earlier in the day. "I'm _tired_ of resting. I'd far rather keep moving." She stopped pacing and flung herself down on the waterproof tarp they had spread out in front of the tent.

Numair sat down, more gracefully and less impetuously, beside her. "Something's worrying you—something _else,_" he amended. "What is it? Can I help?"

"I don't know what it is," she admitted. "Cabin fever, I suppose. Tent fever. Campsite fever. I think I'll feel better once we're on the road again. At least, I _hope _so. I know it's stupid to set off at two o'clock in the afternoon, but …"

He looked at her, his dark eyes full of concern. "If you'd rather carry on, and you feel up to it—"

She made an impatient gesture.

"Well, then, I've no objection. We won't reach our next planned stop, obviously, but that needn't trouble us much out here." Numair got to his feet and reached down to give Daine a hand up. "Shall we?"

* * *

Having struck their camp in half an hour, they continued roughly northeast along the Clearwater River trail. Daine set an easy pace, not deliberately but because she was finding it hard to concentrate; whereas before she had been preoccupied by the wild beauty of her surroundings, now she went almost without seeing, tugged along by the feeling of _wrongness_ in her mind. 

"How goes it? Are you feeling any better?" Numair inquired, an hour or so after they set out.

Daine answered with a sigh and a shake of her head.

And another hour later, "I don't think it _was_ cabin fever, after all."

Numair offered her his canteen, and she sipped gratefully before handing it back to him.

"What do you think it is, then?" he asked.

Another sigh. "I've no idea. That's what's sending me mad. All last night I kept dreaming that something bad was happening somewhere near, and since I woke up this morning I've had this feeling that I need to go _somewhere_ and find _something_, but … It's so _frustrating!_ I've got nothing to go on."

"What if you told me about the dreams?" Numair suggested.

"I'd love to, 'Mair, but honestly, all I can remember is what I've just said – something bad happening somewhere near. I think … I think if we got nearer whatever it was – _is _– I might have a clearer idea …"

He was silent for a long moment, apparently deep in thought. Daine watched him, finding his absorbed quiet oddly calming.

"Have you," he said at last, hesitantly, "any sense of which direction the _something_ might be in?"

She shook her head.

"Do you remember anything from the dreams? Even some … tiny thing that might not seem important?"

Daine closed her eyes and tipped her head back, trying to clear her mind. "There is one thing," she said at last. "Well, not so much a thing … it wasn't 'dreams,' it was just the one dream, over and over. And …" she hesitated, feeling foolish. "Whatever it was, it kept getting more and more … _urgent._ Worse."

* * *

They had trudged on for a further half-hour when, suddenly, Daine stopped in her tracks, staring with narrowed eyes at some indeterminate point to the left of the trail. Numair, who had been trying to determine whether the white flowers that grew alongside the path were grass-of-Parnassus or some obscure type of buttercup and had just decided that he needed to check his field guide, walked into her, and they both went sprawling. 

"Sorry, love," he said, as he helped her up.

But Daine was paying no attention. "We need to go that way," she said, pointing north, where Mount Malloch loomed in the distance above the treeline.

"What?"

"That way," she repeated.

"But, vetkin," he protested, startled, "that's _off-trail_. Not encouraged, and for very sound environmental reasons—"

"You asked whether I had a sense of direction," Daine said. "I hadn't, but I do have now, and this is it."

Numair sighed, very quietly: he knew that stubborn tone of old. His choices, at this point, were to go along with Daine's plan, whatever it was, or to spend an hour attempting to dissuade her and, in the end, go along anyway.

"At least wait till I've got out the compass and the topo map, so I can keep track of where we are," he said resignedly.

* * *

"I see something," Daine announced, _sotto voce, _signalling a stop with one hand. 

"Something?"

"Look." She gestured at the ground just ahead. "Can you see those marks?"

Numair looked, but saw nothing but damp soil and the fallen needles of conifers. Daine shrugged and went on.

Before long she called another halt, this time to crouch in the undergrowth and sniff at something. Not for the first time, Numair was reminded of their cats. As they went on, threading their way through montane forest in a silence broken only by dripping water and the occasional sounds of birds, their pace grew slower and slower, Daine pausing frequently to gaze around as though searching for some particular clue that would set them on the right path.

They were at least an hour away from the trail when, suddenly, she stepped back, nearly knocking into him, and clutched at his arm. "Look," she gasped, pointing.

Then she buried her face against his chest.

When Numair looked where she had pointed, he saw why: they had come upon a cougar, recently dead, caught in a highly illegal leg-hold trap. The trapped leg was bloody and torn; the animal had chewed nearly down to the bone in a vain effort to free itself.

Numair held Daine tightly in his arms, at once to comfort her and to keep his own smouldering anger in check.

* * *

"Where are we?" Daine demanded. "Find this place and circle it on the map. I want to be able to tell them _exactly_ where this happened." 

She had put aside her grief, for the moment, to concentrate instead on the burning rage that buoyed and fuelled her. Some person – some _monster_ – had set this trap, and would eventually come along to check it; if she and Numair could give the Park authorities sufficiently accurate information, that person might possibly be caught. Prosecuted. _Torn limb from limb._

Daine dismissed this thought as unhelpful, however satisfying it might be. Breathing slowly and deeply in an effort to remain calm, she crouched down to examine the body.

"Is it …" Numair began.

"Yes."

He didn't ask what made her so sure that this cougar was _their_ cougar; he knew her well enough by now, she supposed, to realize both that she was right and that it was futile to press her for explanations.

"I'm so sorry," she murmured, stroking the dead beast's muzzle. "When I said I hoped we'd see you again …"

"I've got the spot, as well as I can," said Numair, who had also had his camera out, photographing their grisly discovery and such surrounding scenery as might help another person find this location. "What now?"

It was a little unnerving to have him defer to her so overtly, though of course he did so more subtly often enough. "I … I don't know," she admitted. "I don't know what the right thing to do is. I don't know what we _can_ do. We could call in the map reference …"

"I hardly think there's any chance of a signal out here, love."

"Please try."

He did so, without success – hardly surprising, Daine supposed.

"The thing is," she said after a moment, "I've still got that feeling of needing to put something right. It's … _different_ now, but stronger."

"We're not getting back to the trail today, then." Numair's tone was carefully neutral; she was sorry to have got them into this mess, but there was, she felt, no other real choice.

"I'm sorry—"

He cut her apology short with an impatient gesture. "Please don't."

From a great distance – or so it seemed to Daine – they heard a strange cry, a sort of chirruping whistle.

"What on earth was _that_?" Numair asked.

"Of course," Daine said. Everything made more sense now.

"Of course, what?"

"_That,_" she told him, "since you ask, was a cougar cub calling for its mother."

* * *

They paused for a quick, cold supper once they had got well away; they sat on Numair's spread-out anorak, huddled together not for warmth but for reassurance. Their plan had been to stop for no more than half an hour before moving on, in order to get as far as possible before dusk; but before twenty minutes had elapsed, Daine was asleep. 

Her dreams this time were vivid and insistent; she saw rushing water, a rocky outcrop, a dark, sheltered overhang – and always that eerie, pleading cry.

She woke abruptly and sat up, cracking the top of her head against Numair's chin. "Let me see that map," she said, and he handed it over, rubbing his jaw. "I know where we have to go."

* * *

It was past nine o'clock in the evening; the light was beginning to fade, and with it the day's heat. Walking almost due east for the past several hours, they had crossed the Clearwater River trail and the river itself; Numair hoped fervently that the next time their journey called for the fording of watercourses, they would be able to find a less hair-raising place to make their attempt. 

"Are we—" he began.

"Nearly there? I think so." Daine raised her head and sniffed the air. Then, responding to some cue only she could detect, she plunged ahead again; he trailed along behind her, compass and map in hand.

They emerged from the trees onto the rocky bank of a small, swift-running creek. Daine crouched down at the water's edge and peered first left, then right, into the gathering dusk. Suddenly she appeared to spot something; springing up as energetically as though she had not been trailbreaking for hours, she beckoned him after her as she struck a precarious course southward along the bank.

They came to a heap of large rocks – _A moraine_, Numair thought, momentarily distracted – and Daine began poking about at its base. He was watching her, wondering whether he should offer to help her search or whether that would be courting serious injury, when that odd, chirruping whistle sounded again, echoing at a daunting volume among the rocks. _Of course – how else could we have heard it so far away?_

Daine had moved out of his sight. "_There_ you are," he heard her say. "There, now. It's all right. No, I'm sorry, I can't take you to your mum, but I'll look after you, little kitten. There we are, that's right."

And she emerged from behind the moraine.

A large-eyed feline face, its white muzzle outlined in black below comically over-sized ears, regarded Numair solemnly from the circle of her arms.

* * *

"She ought to have a name, I suppose," said Daine. She addressed the cougar cub: "Will it hurt your feelings if we go on calling you 'Kitten'?" It raised its head very slightly and licked her chin. "Kitten it is, then." 

"We can't keep her, you know," Numair warned. He was pitching a bare-bones camp, in the dark, on his own, the cub having refused to be parted from Daine even for a moment. They had given her a meal of milk (made up from the powdered they had brought to put in their tea) and part of their emergency ration of tinned sardines, and she was drowsing in Daine's arms, apparently content.

Peering at him over her charge's furry head, Daine looked scandalized at this suggestion. "Of _course_ we can't!" she said. "Kitten's a wild animal, she belongs in the wild. I didn't say we ought to _keep _her, I said we've got to take her with us the rest of the way."

"Yes, but—"

"We can't leave her here on her own, Numair. She's a _baby_. She'll starve, or die of exposure, or—"

"You're putting words in my mouth," he protested. "I certainly didn't suggest leaving her here. I'm simply concerned about your … becoming attached."

Daine rolled her eyes. "Of course I'm not going to get _attached,_" she said. Then, after a moment, "Not more than usual, at any rate."

Numair, thinking once more of their domestic menagerie (particularly Griffin, whom Thom Cooper had once, aptly, called "a beast only the Beast Whisperer could love"), gave vent to a quiet groan. "'Usual' is precisely what concerns me," he said.

* * *

Numair slept badly. Shortly after dawn he dreamed of being trapped underwater with a crushing weight on his ribcage. He woke, gasping for breath, to discover the source of this sensation: Kitten was curled up on his chest, purring thunderously. 

"Gerroff," he protested indistinctly.

"What?" this was Daine, who sat up in her bedroll, brown curls sticking up in all directions. Focusing on the scene before her, she put up one hand to hide her laughter.

"Your new friend appears to think that I make an excellent bed," Numair remarked dryly.

"Well, and no wonder," Daine said, regarding his naked chest with ill-concealed amusement. "It's so lovely and _furry_ …"

"Thanks ever so."

Daine leaned over and gathered the still-sleeping Kitten into her arms. "There now," she said. "You can come and sleep with M— with me."

She burrowed back into her sleeping-bag, cougar cub and all, but not before Numair had seen the guilty flush of her cheeks. _Oh, dear_, he thought. _I was afraid of that._

* * *

As best Numair could determine by means of compass and map, they were within a kilometre of the Divide Creek trail, to the head of which their original trajectory would have taken them some time late on Tuesday afternoon. It was anyone's guess whether, from this point, it would be quicker to go back the way they had come or to go forward, trying to rejoin the trail at the first opportunity. If they went back, some of the terrain would be familiar, which might make the going easier. On the other hand … 

"Well? What's the verdict?" Daine inquired.

He looked at her and sighed. She had been too busy caring for their refugee to take much care of herself; yesterday's clothes, which she had also slept in, bore the marks of their scrambles through dense undergrowth and over rocks, and her dirt-streaked face was lined with exhaustion. She was also cradling the sleeping Kitten, slung across her chest in a carrier she had improvised from one of Numair's shirts, and smiling beatifically.

"Forward," he said, trying to sound more confident than he felt.

He half expected an argument – surely Daine could see that he was making things up as he went along? – but she simply nodded and looked up at him expectantly, waiting for him to take the lead.

* * *

**A/N:** Readers should note that at this point the story has left the geographical area with which I am personally familiar, and I am working from maps that are not very detailed. I know approximately where the trails, the major rivers, and some well-known peaks are, but the rest I'm making up. If it should happen that anyone reading this has more accurate knowledge of the area in question, please speak up -- I'd appreciate the input. 


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: **Wow, thanks for all the reviews! I really do appreciate them. I've tried to update faster this time.

Someone mentioned adoption, which is a totally valid point, so I thought I'd address it here. This doesn't bear directly on the story, so if you're not interested, feel free to skip to the chapter itself. Two main issues: First, adopting a child (especially a baby) isn't as easy to do as some people think. You have to go through a "home study" wherein a social worker or similar gets to pass judgement on your suitability as parents; you have to sign on with an agency, a lawyer or similar; depending on the type of adoption you're after (variations include country of origin, age of child, whether you want one the same race/ethnicity/colour as you, how old you are, open vs. closed adoption, public vs. private, among other factors), you might be on a waiting list for up to a decade (yes, seriously!) or you might have an adoption fall through at any point between the initial agreement and (depending on where you live) up to a year after the child is placed with you; the costs involved, especially for an overseas adoption, can be staggering. Second, any adoptive parent or advocate of adoption will tell you that "we couldn't have our own children" is not a good reason for deciding to adopt. It is a starting point for many adoptive parents, true, but in order for an infertile couple to be good, healthy parents to an adopted child, they really need to finish grieving the biological children they're not going to have. More to the point here, though, is that people in the midst of unsuccessful attempts to conceive aren't known for thinking rationally and logically about the issues. They want what everyone around them seems to have achieved so easily, and it seems terribly unfair that it isn't happening for them.

/soapbox

And now, back to our story ... :)

**

* * *

Chapter 9: Back Country, 25–28 July**

They found the trail again more quickly than Numair had expected. His relief at this was short-lived, however: it soon occurred to him that, although they were safer on the trail, they were also far more likely to encounter other backpackers, who would certainly want to know what on earth two British tourists were doing with a cougar cub. That he and (especially) Daine were in fact better qualified than most to look after such a creature was, besides being difficult to document in these circumstances, not likely to matter much should someone decide to challenge them.

And then there was the matter of how to feed her. Already she had eaten and drunk her way through the rest of their powdered milk and sardines, and Numair was not at all sure what to suggest the next time she got hungry.

"Fish," Daine said, startlingly, as though she had been reading his thoughts. "Cougars will eat fish if game's scarce. And I'm not catching martens and things for you," she added sternly, peering down at Kitten. "Anything you can catch yourself you're welcome to, but there are limits."

"You do realize we haven't got a fishing permit," Numair pointed out. "If we're caught fishing in the Park without one—"

"Weren't you listening to Sandy and Jim? There are hardly any patrols in this part of the Park, and remember, we've not seen a single human being for nearly three days now. Besides," Daine went on, in her most matter-of-fact tone, "if we did meet a Park warden, chances are they'd be more exercised about _her_ than about any fish. Have you any notion of how many rules we've broken already? Going off-trail – feeding wildlife – _touching_ wildlife – we've brought wildlife into our _tent_, for goodness' sake."

"Not exactly _brought_," he disagreed. "But you do make a valid point about the fish. Not that we've got anything to fish _with_, of course."

"We have got dental floss and a sewing kit, though."

Numair's puzzlement must have shown in his face; Daine looked up at him, laughing, and said, "Don't tell me you never stole your mum's sewing-pins to make fishhooks when you were a lad?"

He shook his head. "I didn't have quite that sort of childhood," he reminded her. "But if you say it can be done …"

"You ought to have more faith in me," she scolded, still laughing. It was odd, he thought, how much she had laughed today. "Kitten believes me, don't you, Kit?" The young cougar opened her mouth in a feline grin.

Numair, feeling outnumbered, dropped back to fiddle with his bootlace. Kitten peered over Daine's shoulder and mewed at him, for all the world as though she were concerned he would be left behind.

* * *

By the time they stopped for the night, they were nearly two days behind their scheduled itinerary. "Which means we're not doing at all badly," Daine pointed out, "considering where we've been." 

They were able to pitch camp in the usual way today; Kitten took up a station at the centre of events, watching in apparent fascination as Daine constructed the tent, laid out the bedrolls, and set up the water filter, while Numair put up the tarp and set up the stove. That done, he selected two stout trees, well apart, and strung a length of rope between them some four metres above the ground, then began searching the packs for supper ingredients. Daine extracted a small trowel from her rucksack and set off to dig the latrine pit; Kitten, wearing a curious expression, trotted after her.

When they returned, Numair was stirring together a batch of bannock. "Don't stir it too much," Daine reminded him, not for the first time. He frowned at her. "He starts thinking," she explained to Kitten, speaking just loudly enough for Numair to hear, "and then he gets distracted and keeps stirring and stirring, and then it bakes up hard as rocks."

"The world is full of critics," he sighed, thinking, with some satisfaction, _At least it's not my turn to wash up_.

* * *

Though the day had had been warm, the air cooled as evening fell, and the night was positively arctic. Outside, hoarfrost rimed leaves and twigs, blossomed whitely on the exposed surfaces of tent and tarp, furred the food bag and the ropes that held it off the ground and away from the trees. Inside their tent, Daine, Numair and Kitten drifted closer and closer to one another until, when the sun rose, they found themselves curled together in a heap in the centre of the tent. Daine woke with her head tucked under Numair's chin and Kitten purring loudly against her throat. 

"Lonely, were you?" she inquired, yawning hugely.

They ate porridge for breakfast – even Kitten, to Daine's dismay. "You're meant to be a carnivore," she chided. "This is herbivore food."

"Let her be," counselled Numair. "She's got to eat _something_, and it's not as though we're loaded down with meat to feed her on. It's only for a few days, in any case."

After breakfast, when the dishes had been cleaned and the stove put away and Daine was filling in the latrine pit, Numair spread out the topo map and sat down to try to work out how much longer it would take them to reach the trailhead. At best, he calculated, they could save some time by getting an early start and thus arrive only a day and a half later than planned; it remained to be seen, however, whether they could regain, and keep up, their usual pace or whether, in fact, the new addition to their party would ultimately slow them down still more. In that event, this might turn into a very, very expensive trip: there were only three days between the expected end of their backpacking trip and their scheduled flight to Toronto, the tickets for which it would be impossible to change again if they were still out of mobile-phone range when the flight took off.

"What are you looking so gloomy about, love?" inquired Daine, who had come back without his noticing and was redistributing the food supplies into their two rucksacks.

Numair looked round, startled, and burst out laughing: while Daine was busy with the packing, Kitten had dragged one of the sleeping-bags out of the tent and was "hunting" it, stalking and clumsily pouncing whenever the breeze stirred the lightweight fabric of the shell.

"If you're after more breakfast," Daine told her – with some difficulty, as she was laughing so hard that she could scarcely draw breath – "I think you'd have better luck with something _smaller._"

Kitten left off her hunting practice and stalked, tail stiffly upraised, around to the opposite side of the tent, where she sat with her back to them, looking insulted.

* * *

Though they all tried their best to keep up a brisk pace, it was soon apparent that rather than making any headway against their timetable, they were falling farther behind. Daine wished heartily that there were no plane flight to Toronto to race toward; had they not been so worried about getting back in time, she thought, this might have been a truly idyllic trip. 

When Kitten grew bored with being carried, Daine let her down to roam about on her own; the cub seemed delighted to have so much new territory to explore, racing ahead of them and making excursions to either side of the trail, then returning to flop at their feet, apparently exhausted. "Well, if you'd pace yourself better," Numair told her after one such display, impatience warring with amusement in his tone.

"She's a _baby_," Daine rebuked him, not for the first time. "She doesn't know how. I think it's your turn to carry her, by the by."

"_My_ turn?"

She nodded, and Kitten, who had been sprawled on her back at Daine's feet, flipped herself upright and stood up on her hind legs, her front paws against Numair's trouser leg, and looked up at him expectantly.

"All right, all right," he grumbled, and crouched down to pick the cub up.

Daine set off again, trusting Numair to follow; when she glanced back after a moment, he was striding along in her wake, Kitten draped around his shoulders, and both of them were grinning.

* * *

They stopped for lunch shortly after noon, having covered some two-thirds of the expected distance. Daine ate her cheese and crackers and apple in silence, wishing there were more to eat or that she weren't so dreadfully hungry. When she had finished, she dug out the sewing kit from her pack and, using the still-shiny corkscrew on her battered Swiss Army knife, began bending pins into makeshift fishhooks. 

"We're going to try a spot of illegal fishing, are we?" Numair inquired, noticing what she was doing.

"I don't see what choice we've got. We've only brought enough food for two people for one extra day, instead of which we've now got _three_ people for who knows _how_ many days—" she stopped, frowning. "Where _is_ Kitten?"

Numair looked around, frowning too. Just as he seemed about to announce that he didn't know, the object of their concern padded out of the trees, looking smug and carrying something in her mouth. She came closer, and dropped the something in front of Daine: a young ground squirrel, very dead.

Daine swallowed. Once, then again.

"Well done, Kitten," she said after a moment, smiling at the cougar cub and scratching behind her ears. "Very well caught. Eat up, now."

To Numair she said, "That's something, any road. But I expect we'll still need to catch her some fish."

* * *

That evening they kept on as long as they could, stopping only when they began to lose the light. They set up camp in record time, and Daine put up a scant cupful of rice to boil on the stove and sent Numair and Kitten down to the creek to try their luck at catching some supper. 

When they came back from their fishing expedition with the one modest rainbow trout Kitten had not devoured, gutted and cleaned and ready for the pan, their campsite at first appeared deserted. Kitten chirped uncertainly; reassuring her, Numair stood for a moment looking around, and quickly found what he had been looking for.

Daine sat cross-legged in the small needle-carpeted gap between two fir trees, her hair (which she had been brushing) falling round her shoulders like a curtain, and the forest birds and mammals came to pay their court. A chipmunk ran up her arm and perched on her shoulder; a marmot lumbered out of the undergrowth to put its head on her knee; a pair of waxwings fluttered and danced in front of her like jesters performing for their queen.

Numair thought she looked like some sort of sylvan goddess, bewitching and half-wild. He considered telling her so, but (smiling to himself) reflected that she would almost certainly laugh at him, and thought better of it.

Instead he sat silently and watched her, holding the drowsy Kitten in his arms, and when at length she said her last farewell and came to greet him, he pretended they had been dozing against a tree.

* * *

On Friday morning Daine shrugged into her bra, then adjusted the straps, again, so that it fit more comfortably. _I knew this would happen, _she thought, annoyed; _too many dratted pancakes with syrup! _She unrolled the cleaner of her two t-shirts and pulled it over her head. 

It strained at the seams so that she feared for its structural integrity.

"Numair!" she called out the tent-flap, rather crossly, "What on earth did you wash my shirts in? I _know_ this one fit the last time I wore it!"

"Cold water and laundry soap," he called back. "Not guilty!"

Grumbling, she crawled out of the tent and went in search of breakfast.

* * *

Soon after their departure their route took them to the confluence of Divide Creek and the Red Deer River, whence they turned west to follow the latter on a trail that, according to the Parks Canada map, was designated for the use of hikers and commercial trail-riding parties. They had briefly canvassed the idea of changing their route to eliminate the possibility of encountering a large party of people and horses; but in the end the considerable additional distance involved, coupled with existing worries over rations, had tipped the balance in favour of the original plan. 

"I can always tell Kitten to run away and hide, if we should meet anyone," Daine had argued. "She'd probably be terrified of horses – they may not be predators, but they're big enough to squash her flat, after all. And it's so quiet out here, we'll be sure to hear if anyone's coming."

Periodically they tried out their mobiles, on the off chance that, somehow, there might be enough signal to enable them to let someone know they were alive and well but running late. The screens stubbornly continued to read NO SIGNAL.

"Just as well," Daine joked after one such attempt. "Whatever would we tell them?"

"We shall have to tell them something eventually," Numair pointed out reasonably.

"Aye," she agreed, "but why borrow trouble?"

* * *

That evening it fell to Numair to dig the latrine pit. He searched for some time for a suitable spot, far enough away from the water, the trail, and their camp. When he came back, Daine was sitting tailor-fashion on the grass, with the sleeping Kitten curled in her lap, scowling formidably. 

"Is something the matter, vetkin?" he queried mildly.

"What?" she looked up, startled. "No – I'm only thinking ..."

"It looked painful."

"_You_ are painful," she retorted.

"You weren't planning to tell me, then."

Daine appeared to be considering the matter. "I might do," she said at last. "But only if you're very, very good, and come and rub my back."

Shaking his head, he settled himself behind her and began to massage her shoulders.

When, after a few minutes, Daine remained silent, Numair leaned down to nuzzle her right ear.

"That's very distracting, you know," she complained.

"It was meant to be." He stroked long fingers down both sides of her neck and shoulders, and she shivered.

"I was thinking," she began, after a moment, "how much I'd like to stay out here."

Numair's fingers stilled.

Sensing his alarm, Daine went on hastily: "I don't mean _forever_. Just … a little longer. I wish we hadn't got to hurry back."

Relaxing, he wrapped gentle arms around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. "So do I," he said.

* * *

Saturday found them once again on the Red Deer River trail, making for the Red Deer Lakes. Mount McConnell rose grey and jagged to their right, and Mount Drummond, at the edge of the Drummond Glacier, loomed before them to the southwest. 

"It's so beautiful," Daine sighed, as she hefted a plaintive Kitten after their latest water break. "So _wild. _Hard to believe someone could poach here. You'd think they'd be frozen with remorse and run home with their tails between their legs."

"It is hard to believe," Numair agreed, "irrespective of that appallingly mixed metaphor—"

He was about to go on, but changed his mind when both wife and cougar cub favoured him with reproachful glares. "It's hardly fair to gang up on me," he objected mildly, thinking, _How on earth does she _do_ that?_ "Not particularly prudent, either, as I'm carrying most of the food, _and_—" he looked pointedly at Kitten— "all the fishhooks."

"That was a perfectly serious statement," Daine retorted, "and it was hardly fair of _you_ to mock my inferior rhetorical skill." The erudition of this remark was somewhat spoilt by the fact that she punctuated it by putting out her tongue at her husband.

"I'm sorry," said Numair. "You're quite right – it was unkind, and I apologize."

She looked taken aback, and mumbled, "'S'all right."

"It _is_ beautiful," Numair said softly, bending to kiss her forehead. She smiled up at him; Kitten, not to be left out, climbed up onto Daine's shoulder and stretched her neck toward Numair until he took the hint and scratched her ears.

"'D'you know," Daine said meditatively, several minutes later, "it's the oddest thing. This weather, and all _this_—" she waved a hand at their picture-postcard surroundings— "I feel rather like _singing_."

Numair did his best to hide his smile. Daine had always been self-conscious – entirely without reason, in his view – about singing, and generally did so only when she was sure no one could hear her, or no one but Numair and the dogs and cats. "Sing, then," he suggested. "A marching song might be very useful. And Parks Canada recommend it, you know, to warn away bears."

This earned him a raised eyebrow: "I read the web site as well, you know."

But she did sing, after a silence so long he had begun to think self-consciousness had got the better of her. Her warm mezzo-soprano, husky and tentative at first, gained confidence as she forgot herself in the beauty of the day. The song she had chosen – oddly suited to their surroundings, Numair reflected, though meant for another continent in another time – was indeed perfect for marching to, and by the time Daine reached the chorus they were swinging along the trail hand in hand, singing at the top of their lungs:

_Towering in gallant fame  
Scotland my mountain hame  
High may your proud standards  
Gloriously wave!  
Land of my high endeavour  
Land of the shining river  
Land of my heart forever  
Scotland the brave!_

Whether or not they managed to warn away any bears, they would never discover. They did, however, make sufficient noise that the dozen-strong trail-riding party that confronted them around the next turning took them utterly by surprise.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N:** Once again, I feel like this chapter hasn't been sufficiently polished, but my increasing tinkering didn't seem to be helping, so I've decided to post it anyway and see what everybody thinks. I reiterate that I am no longer basing the geography on personal experience (except that I have seen Ptarmigan Lake, and many other similar lakes in the Rockies), so no doubt the narrative is riddled with errors of fact that (at the moment) I have no means of correcting. I've tried to make it work regardless ...

About "Scotland the Brave" in the last chapter: yes, it's a huge cliché. My rationale for using it is as follows: (a) It's a good marching/walking song. (b) Daine is not a musician; she learns stuff like this from Alanna's children, who are army brats. (c) Both Numair and Daine are so grateful for the second chances they've had in Edinburgh that they've become rather fervently patriotic Scots, and this is one manifestation of that. :)

**Disclaimer: **my own twisted, time-shifted take on Tamora Pierce's characters. Also, if the tone shifts a little toward the end, that's probably the influence of the redoubtable Connie Willis, whose short stories in the _Bringing Up Baby_ vein I've been re-reading over the last couple of days...

**

* * *

Chapter 10: Back Country, 28–31 July**

Daine stopped short, with a breathless squeak, and froze, her hand clutching Numair's so tightly that her fingers ached. _Damn, damn, damn_, she thought. _How could I be so _stupid?

Numair took a casual-looking step toward the newcomers, putting his height and bulk between her and their curious eyes. Something sharp briefly scored her shoulder; her rucksack shifted, and there was a soft, unidentifiable noise behind her head. Only now did Daine realize that her curled left arm was no longer full of feline. Too panicked to be cautious, she stepped out from behind Numair and looked round for Kitten.

The young cougar was nowhere to be seen.

"Hi there," called the foremost rider, from the saddle of his large bay gelding. "Everything okay? You folks look a little spooked."

Realizing belatedly that the first words out of his mouth had not been _What the hell were you doing with that animal_, Daine struggled to speak; her throat, suddenly, was so dry that instead she began to cough. Numair passed her his canteen, and she sipped gratefully. He was the picture of calm; had she not been inches away from him, even she might not have guessed how terrified he was.

"Yes, thank you, everything's fine," he was saying now. "You startled us. We were making rather a lot of noise, you see, and we failed to hear your party approaching."

The man on horseback looked nonplussed – _as well he might_, Daine thought. _And where on God's green earth _is_ that beastie? I hope she's run far enough. And not too far. And not into any trouble. _"Well, okay," he said. "Listen, would you mind just stepping to one side, there, so I can lead these folks on by? It's usually easier that way, and—"

He broke off, frowning, and tugged gently at his mount's reins. "I'm sorry, ma'am. Rusty's usually a nice, polite horse, but he seems to have taken a real liking to you…"

"That's quite all right," Daine said, smiling, as the gelding whuffled into her ear and lipped her shoulder. She talked softly to him, praising his patience and gentle nature, not immediately noticing the consternation that was overtaking the rest of the mounted humans as their horses crowded in behind Rusty to see what was going on. Really, she thought, the beasts in this country were the friendliest she'd ever met.

When Numair touched her arm gently, she looked up to find both of them surrounded, ringed by equine faces wearing expressions of interest and affection and by human ones expressing impatience, confusion, irritation, and fear. A little brown mare sniffed curiously at her rucksack, then snorted sharply and pulled her head back; her rider, a sunburnt blonde woman of about Numair's age, gave a little shriek. Daine had a disturbing thought.

"Go along, now," she told the horses. "Safe journey."

When the last of them had gone, she unclipped the chest and hip belts of the rucksack and eased her arms out of the straps, depositing the whole apparatus in the middle of the trail. "You may as well come out, now," she said to it.

Numair shot her a quizzical look.

"You'll see," she said; and, to the rucksack, "Come along now. It's all right, the big scary herbivores have gone."

A tuft of golden fur, patched with dark brown, emerged tentatively from the large zippered pocket on the top of Daine's pack, then withdrew. A moment later a pink-brown nose, large, liquid blue eyes and large ears bristling with white guard-hairs appeared; Kitten whistled interrogatively, then worked her shoulders free and at last leapt down to solid ground.

"That," said Numair to no one in particular, "was a _very_ close call."

"Aye," Daine agreed fervently, crouching down to fondle Kitten's ears. "Thank goodness that zip happened to be open – I was sure I'd zipped everything up this morning. That was _very_ clever of you, Kit, to think of hiding like that."

Kitten purred and rubbed her cheek against Daine's hand.

* * *

"How are the supplies holding out?" Numair inquired of Daine, who was foraging for their supper. He sat with his back against a tree, the topo map spread out over his bent knees, and was engaged in charting their progress and estimating how much longer they could expect to be _en route._

"As well as could be expected, I suppose," she replied. "Milk powder: gone. Cheese: gone. Sardines: _long_ gone. Apples: four. Gorp: lashings. Carrots: six. Quick rice: about … a cup left. Crackers: about a dozen, plus a few more that seem to've been sat on – maybe Kitten'll like those. Porridge oats: two cups, give or take – lots. Dried mushrooms: really a lot, 'cos I just now found them at the bottom of your pack. Peanut-butter …"

There was an odd sound, as of a zip being zipped. Daine, turning, saw that this was it exactly: Kitten, apparently tired of flattening herself to squirm in and out under the tent flap, had unzipped it vertically and now stepped daintily out of the tent, looking smug.

Numair frowned. "Did I know she could do that?" he asked.

"_I_ certainly didn't!" Daine exclaimed. "I rather thought zippers needed _fingers._"

"Oh, no," he replied, perfectly serious. "Actually teeth work quite—"

At this point something seemed to occur to him; his face went crimson under his tan and he shut his lips firmly.

Daine chortled. "I'm not sure what you're getting at," she said, all bewildered innocence. "You'll have to show me what you mean sometime."

* * *

The rain began shortly after midnight. At three o'clock in the morning it was falling hard and fast; the noise woke Daine from a vague and disconnected dream in which she had fled the mountains with a company of drummers in full highland kit at her heels and taken refuge under the boardwalk at Skegness Pier. By dawn the exciting part of the storm was long over, giving place to a gentle, relentless drizzle that bid fair to continue all day. 

"It can't possibly keep on all day," Numair said positively, when she spoke this thought aloud. Daine admired his optimism, but she couldn't share it.

In fact it did keep on nearly all day, but cleared – miraculously, it seemed to Daine – two hours or so before dusk, while they were setting up camp.

"We're wet to the skin," Numair said wearily, which was true enough, despite their rain gear, that she couldn't very well argue. "I think we ought to have a fire tonight. With all this rain the wildfire risk will be minimal."

Daine thought it likely that the odds of finding enough dry fuel even to start a fire were equally minimal, but she held her tongue; the prospect of warming her damp, chilled hands and feet before a campfire, even a small one, was very cheering. _And I wouldn't say no to burning some rubbish to lighten our packs, either._

While Numair set about gathering stones for a fire ring, Daine poked about in the undergrowth, looking for kindling. It was a discouraging task; there was plenty of deadfall, but all of it was as wet as she was.

After some time she realized that she had acquired a helper: Kitten, unnoticed till now, had been hefting small deadfall branches in her jaws and laboriously ferrying them back to Numair's fire ring, where she deposited them in a heap. This was a bit unnerving, but Daine had seen much odder behaviour from animals in her life. "Try and find dry ones," she counselled, when the cub raced past her in search of more "prey."

"She's learning all sorts of new things, isn't she," Numair commented, sounding not entirely pleased, when Daine returned with an armful of only slightly damp branches. "Does _this_ strike you as normal behaviour?"

Daine looked at Kitten's contribution and shrugged. "She hasn't been as clever as all that," she pointed out, once she was sure the cub was out of earshot. "Nearly all of it's soaking wet."

* * *

Monday dawned bright and clear, to everyone's relief. The rain had begun again while they were eating their mushroom-and-rice supper, quashing Daine's pleasant daydreams of spending the evening warming her chilled fingers and toes at a crackling fire; everything was as damp when they woke in the morning as it had been the night before. They had slept badly, feeling wet, cold and hard done by despite dry (if grubby) clothes and only slightly dampened bedrolls. Their small-animal visitors had largely abandoned them since Kitten had joined their party – wisely, Daine reflected, as Kitten was becoming a more and more proficient hunter, at least of very small game. 

Although the mountain dawn, as always, was chilly, it was cheering to think that by midday the sun might again be strong enough to dry things out again.

Numair fetched a potful of water from the river and filtered it into their canteens and the spare bottles. Daine drank deeply from hers, gasping at its temperature; after nearly a fortnight the cold still made her teeth ache. "It is glacial, vetkin," Numair reminded her.

Kitten, who had been lapping water directly from the pot while they were distracted, raised her dripping muzzle and made the snuffling sound that, they had decided, meant she was amused. "It's all very well for you," Daine grumbled. "You're used to it."

They set out an hour after dawn, yawning and sipping tea from the thermos flask. Kitten ran circles round them for the first hour or so, then, exhausted, planted herself squarely on Daine's feet, chirruping plaintively to be picked up. With a sardonic glance at Numair, Daine obliged, settling the cub into the front of her anorak where she would be warm and, with luck, remain more or less unnoticed.

Every step, now, brought them closer to the more populated sections of the park, and they walked in near silence, alert for the noises that would signal the approach of other walkers, trail riders, or Parks patrols. For several hours they met no one at all, which, perversely, made Daine ever more nervous. When, at half ten, they stopped to have a rest, Numair, over her half-hearted protests, took her rucksack from and stood behind her, kneading the tense muscles of her shoulders and back. She had not realized, until she felt herself unwind under his hands, just how tightly wound she had become.

"Try to relax, love," he said. "You're strung tight as a bowstring – you can't keep on like this all day."

Kitten chose that moment to wriggle into a more comfortable position against Daine's chest while emitting a long, whistling snore, and both of them dissolved into laughter.

"I needed that," Daine said a few minutes later, wiping her eyes. "Let's mount up again, OK? I'll be all right now, I think."

Grinning, Numair helped her back into her rucksack straps, then swung his own pack onto his broad shoulders and set off down the trail.

It was only a few minutes after this that they met the German university students, who needed reassuring that they were on the correct trail and wanted to know if they were likely to see any "fierce animals" on this stretch of it. While Numair spoke with them, Daine beat a hasty retreat off-trail, mumbling something about "the facilities": Kitten, at the mention of "fiercer animals," had begun to growl and tried to thrust her head up out of Daine's anorak.

* * *

"Skoki Valley," Daine read. "What sort of name d'you reckon that is?" 

"Autochthonous, I should think," Numair replied absently; then, seeing her reproachful expression, "Indigenous. Aboriginal. I'll look it up more specifically when we get home." He produced his notebook and a pencil from a capacious trouser pocket and made a note and then, for good measure, extracted the camera from another pocket and photographed the trail sign.

"It isn't fair, you know," Daine remarked, as they went on.

"Hmm?"

"Pockets. Men's clothes always have more of them, and bigger ones. And it's not as though men have more things to carry. It's terribly sexist."

"But," Numair objected mildly, "women's clothes are shaped differently – they need to be. Perhaps there isn't room for the same level of ... pocketage."

"Not as differently as all that," she retorted. This was a comfortably familiar topic, and it was for this reason as much as any genuine outrage about pockets that she had brought it up. "It was the same at school. Everyone had to wear the same poxy blazers, but ours had one pocket and the boys' had four. And they wore trousers and _we_ had to wear skirts – skirts without—"

"Let me guess: without pockets."

"Not even to mention the P.E. kit," Daine went on, branching out. "Talking of sexist—"

"Why _do_ they make girls play hockey in such minuscule skirts? I've never understood it. Enjoyed it, yes—"

Daine threw a convenient fir cone at him.

"—but not understood it," he finished, dodging to the left. The cone flew harmlessly over his right shoulder.

"It's tradition, I suppose. Perpetuated by randy middle-aged P.E. teachers who like to look at girls' knickers. Though in that case you'd think bike shorts would do just as well."

Numair blinked. "Has anyone ever told you, vetkin, that you've got—"

"A dirty mind? Aye, they have." Daine grinned mischievously. "But you're the only one to live to tell about it."

* * *

On Monday evening – by which time they had planned to be back in Calgary, sightseeing and sleeping somewhere with clean sheets and hot and cold laid on – Numair spread out the maps again with a sigh. It had been a long day, during which Kitten had had to be rescued from a nine-foot-high tree limb, a confrontation with an understandably angry wolverine, and a large patch of stinging nettles. 

"What would your mum say?" Daine had scolded her, exactly as Numair had heard her admonish Alan, Aly and the younger Contés when they were under her care. He suspected that, like him, Daine had been thinking regretfully of the time, only a few days earlier, when Kitten had been frightened of her own shadow and clung to Daine like a shipwreck victim to a lifeboat hull.

"Her mum would cuff her round the head with one paw," Numair had pointed out, turning from his attempts to capture the formidable Mount Redoubt in pixels. "And then wash her to within an inch of her life and not let her up until she promised to behave better in future."

Daine's folded arms and narrowed eyes had told him what she thought of his contribution to the conversation.

Kitten was sleeping now – "No doubt," Daine remarked on her way past with the supper things, "gathering her strength for the next assault on our nerves" – and looking absurdly innocent of wrongdoing.

"At the very least," Numair said ruefully, "she's going to be awake half the night."

* * *

"You," Daine said indistinctly, "are a _very bad_ cat." 

Numair rubbed one eye. "What's the matter, love?" he inquired, only nominally awake.

"Your cougar—"

"_My_ cougar?" he sat up, forgetting where he was, and the tent lurched as his head and shoulders pulled it sideways.

It was very dark. Numair considered checking his watch, which had a luminous dial for just this sort of situation, but decided, on balance, that he preferred not to know what o'clock it was. There was a smell, though, that he recognized all too well.

"Whatever she ate last night doesn't seem to have agreed with her," Daine said unnecessarily. She sounded rather queasy herself. "P'raps it was deathly ill, and that's how she managed to catch it to begin with."

An indignant mew greeted this suggestion. _At least she's feeling better now …_

"Where?" Numair asked wearily.

"All over the outside of my sleeping-bag."

He sighed. "Well, put it outside, then, and we'll deal with it in the morning."

"And where am I meant to— Oh." There was a shuffling, swishing sound as Daine extricated herself from her ill-fortuned sleeping-bag. "Are you sure there's room?"

"Of course there isn't," he retorted. "There's hardly room for me. But we'll manage – we have done before, after all."

He thought he heard Daine mutter something about newlyweds and being touched in the head; but she was making such a noise with the sleeping-bag that he couldn't be sure.

In the morning they were drowsy and cross, almost sleepwalking through the making and consuming of tea and porridge and the striking of the camp. The evidence of Kitten's unfortunate menu choice had mysteriously vanished, along with the sleeping-bag itself, but it was only when Numair put his head and upper body into the tent to deal with the bedrolls, and found only one, that this absence became apparent.

On hands and knees, he backed quickly out of the tent, unfortunately tangling his legs with Daine's as she passed the tent with the cooking-pot full of "grey water" to be poured into the latrine pit. Daine tried to back away but trod on Kitten, who yowled in protest; Daine toppled over, spilling the water liberally over all three of them and landing flat on her back amongst the fir needles and tree-roots.

"Ow," she said. "Whatever did you do that for?"

"Your sleeping-bag," Numair said urgently, wringing out his hair. "Where did you put it?"

Daine looked about her. "Just where you're sitting, more or less," she said.

"After that, I mean. This morning."

"I've not seen it this morning," Daine said, frowning. "I thought you'd taken it off somewhere to clean the sick off it, and … hung it up to dry, I suppose. D'you mean you _didn't_ take it anywhere?"

Numair shook his head. "I must have forgotten," he admitted. "I only remembered just now, when I started to roll the bedrolls up and noticed yours was gone."

They turned as one to stare at Kitten, who met their suspicious gaze with wide, innocent blue eyes.

* * *

"If we keep on," Numair said, "we ought to be able to reach the trailhead today. This evening, rather. But if you feel tired—" 

Daine sighed. "I know," she said. "But believe me, love, I'm as anxious to get back as you are." Oddly, this was quite true; as they left the true wilderness behind them and began meeting more and more other people, her longing to stay here had evaporated. The last day or two – struggling to keep Kitten out of trouble (her talent for which seemed to be growing by leaps and bounds) and, even more importantly, out of the sight of their fellow humans, while running short on food supplies, not to mention sleep – had been positively stressful, and at the moment Daine, quite simply, wanted nothing so much as a large, warm meal and a hot bath.

But the mountains had still some astonishments in reserve. Today their route took them through Deception Pass and past Ptarmigan Lake – the very lake whose photograph had so astounded them a few weeks ago. In the flesh, so to speak, the sight was even more arresting, the turquoise colour more vivid and jewel-like, the silence moving and profound.

"It's _wondrous_," Daine whispered, hardly daring to breathe.

They stood staring at the still, intensely blue-green surface for more minutes than they had to spare, transfixed by the beauty of the scene and revelling in their great good fortune, to be sharing it with each other.

Then, out of the corner of her eye, Daine saw something ripple that glassy calm, and a cold dread gripped her. "Where is she?" she asked Numair.

He looked about, as did she, but of course there was no Kitten to be seen.

Daine returned with her eyes to the place where she had seen the ripples in the water; and, as luck would have it, it was rippling still.

And the valley echoed with an eerie, whistling chirrup: the sound of a young cougar desperately calling for its mother.

"_Damn_ it," said Daine, already halfway to the water's edge. Numair was only steps behind her, running footsteps heavy in the sudden silence following Kitten's cry for help. "I ought to have known."


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: **This chapter is extra-long and extra-self-indulgent (it's even got ye olde self-insert near the end! Names changed, of course), but at least I updated quickly this time!

**Disclaimer: **Daine and Numair were invented by Tamora Pierce; I have merely kidnapped them, displaced them in space and time, and forced them to have silly adventures.

**

* * *

Chapter 11: Lake Louise, Calgary, Toronto, 1–2 August**

The call brought Sandy to the Lake Louise Visitors' Centre with all possible speed; when her new friends had failed to return on time, she had begun to worry almost immediately, but it was difficult to convince anyone that two responsible adults, both experienced in woodcraft (though not, admittedly, in the ways of the Rocky Mountains), with good equipment and a perfectly unobjectionable plan on file, should be hunted for by the search-and-rescue less than twenty-four hours after their projected return. Without exactly realizing it, Sandy had been dreading a different kind of call for two days now.

It was them, all right, she found when she arrived – damp and dishevelled, wearing grubby, mismatched clothing and an air of purpose.

"Thank goodness you're all right!" Sandy said. "We thought you were lost. I did try to warn you …"

"We weren't lost," Daine said.

"There were some … unexpected occurrences," added Numair. "Quite a number of them, actually—"

"Is there a place we could talk?" asked Daine. It occurred to Sandy now that her friend looked rather ill at ease.

"You mean other than here?"

"Em … I mean, on our own. Somewhere more private." Now Daine looked distinctly uncomfortable, and Sandy frowned, not liking where the conversation seemed to be going.

"What's up?" she asked. "What kind of 'unexpected occurrences' are we talking about here?"

"Well—"

Whatever Daine was going to say, she didn't say it; at that moment the zippered pocket on top of her backpack rustled, then yawned open to reveal a small, furry, _feline_ face.

Sandy's eyes widened in disbelief.

Then – to make matters worse, if that were possible – the animal opened its mouth and licked Daine's ear with its rough pink tongue. "Stop that, Kit," Daine said, fighting laughter. "It tickles."

"Daine," Sandy said, her mouth dry. This was much more dreadful than she had imagined. "Daine, _what did you do?_"

* * *

The laughter died on Daine's lips, and her heart sank. If Sandy, who knew them, reacted like this, what hope was there that anyone else would understand?

"She's an orphan," she began, helplessly. "We found her mum dead – leg-hold trap – under a rockpile – that is, Kitten was under the rockpile—"

"Sweetheart, let me," Numair murmured, his arm circling her shoulders. He told the tale as briefly and persuasively as Daine could have hoped, skilfully eliding the dodgier bits of their own conduct without actually leaving anything out. "The cub is only a few weeks weaned; we didn't feel we could leave her to fend for herself, especially with poachers about. And she seems to have a … _spectacular_ talent for getting into trouble."

To Daine's relief, Sandy was looking much less terrified now. Her face had tightened at Numair's description of the trapped cougar, and though she still radiated anger, clearly it was no longer directed at them. "Show me this map of yours," she said grimly, and Numair extracted it from its rucksack pocket and obliged.

"We've got pictures as well," Daine offered, wondering where Numair might have packed the camera.

Kitten, hitherto unnervingly silent, squeaked at her meaningly, eyes focused on a particular trouser pocket. "Is it?" Daine said absently. "What an odd place to put it. 'Mair, give us the camera, would you? Left-hand trouser pocket, down by your knee."

He stooped a little to reach the pocket, then straightened again, the camera dwarfed by his hand. Daine took it from him and squinted at the screen, trying to remember which of the numerous cryptic icons meant "display," while he went on explaining to Sandy the notations he had made on the topo map.

The first of the photos caught her off guard – she had been there, she remembered what it had been like, but she hadn't wanted to see it again and certainly hadn't wanted Kitten to see it. She thrust the camera at Sandy, eyes averted: "Here. This one and the next twenty or so. Have a look, and then we'll FTP them all to you from Laurel's."

But Sandy was staring at Kitten, looking thunderstruck and faintly appalled. "Did I just see what I thought I saw?" she asked at last.

"She's picked up a few rather odd tricks," Daine admitted. "It seems to happen sometimes. It'll pass, though, mostly, when I've gone."

Huge blue eyes regarded her accusingly; Daine held the cub close, stroking her downy head. "You knew this was coming," she said softly. "I did explain. I'm so sorry, Kit, I wish I could stay, or take you with me, but your home's here, and mine's very far off, you see …"

She didn't realize that she was crying until she felt Kitten's warm, rough tongue washing the tears from her cheeks.

* * *

On the bus back to Calgary – Sandy had tried to insist on finding them a lift, but Numair had kept politely but firmly declining until, at last, she gave way – they sat as far as possible from the rest of the passengers and pored over the camera for nearly the entire trip. Their parting with Kitten had been difficult on all sides. The young cougar manifestly had not understood what was happening, or why, despite Daine's many attempts at explanation; Daine herself had, as predicted, grown entirely too fond of her to bear the separation easily, and Numair found that he, too, regretted the necessity far more than he had expected. Particularly considering what Kitten had put them through over the past twenty-four hours.

"Look at her, all sopping wet and cross," Daine said, laughing through her tears. "She was so _angry_ with that water for being so cold and deep and – and _wet_ – and then she was angry with _you_ for pulling her out—"

"You were rather put out, yourself, I seem to recall." Numair's voice was soft and gently teasing.

"Well, I'd told her and _told _her the water was cold, and not to go swimming on her own—" she stopped abruptly, realizing how she sounded: _like someone's mum. Like _my_ mum._

Her eyes filled again, and she turned her head toward the window. Numair's arm tightened around her shoulders, pulling her against his side, and she turned back to bury her face in his shoulder, fighting the urge to howl her grief aloud to the world.

* * *

"'Mair?" 

"Yes, vetkin?"

"Is that what it's like, having kids? Rescuing them from themselves every five minutes, and then going all to pieces when they go off to school or something? Because if so …"

"If so …?"

"Nothing. Never mind."

* * *

They had been attempting to return their hired camping gear for more than two hours now, long after the Outdoor Program Centre ought to have shut up shop for the day. 

The student behind the desk was neither amused nor impressed by Numair's explanation for the missing sleeping-bag. It was not, it must be admitted, a very plausible one; Daine, perched on the suitcase they had retrieved from Sandy's office and striving valiantly not to yawn her head off, wondered whether the simple truth might have met with less disbelief. Finally she heard Numair say, with a certain dreadful patience, "I'm quite willing to pay for the thing; you've already got my credit-card number, and you're welcome to add the cost of it to the sum, if you'll just—"

"I'm sorry, sir," the student said. He sounded very nervous, and looked no more than seventeen. "It's my first week here, and I just don't know—"

"The chap who hired us the kit was called …" Numair paused a moment to recall the name. "Steven, that was it. Is he about? Perhaps he could be of some assistance."

The student shook his head. "He's in Fort McMurray," he said dismally. "Working for Syncrude for the summer, or maybe it's TCPL. And the supervisor's off sick today. There's just me."

Daine glanced at her watch; it was eight o'clock in the evening, and things were going nowhere fast. She levered herself up from the case and wandered over to the counter. "What did you say your name was, lad?" she asked kindly.

"Ryan, ma'am," the student replied, blinking at her. He had reddish hair and a great many freckles that contrasted harshly with his pale face.

"The thing is, Ryan," Daine continued, smiling at him as winningly as she knew how, "we've got to get on an aeroplane tomorrow afternoon, and we'd _very_ much like a few hours to have baths, and sleep, and all that sort of thing. We've brought everything back but that one sleeping-bag, which to be honest" (she lowered her voice conspiratorially) "I'm not sure you'd have wanted back in any case, and we're _happy_ to pay you for it, as we've been so careless as to lose it. All you need do is sign the forms, and we'll leave you our e-mail address so that if there are any questions your supervisor can get in touch with us …"

Five minutes later they were on their way again, Daine looking smug and Numair shaking his head in amused admiration.

* * *

Reaching the hotel at the airport was a matter of two trains, a bus, and a mercifully brief wander through the "plus-fifteen" tunnels connecting the airport proper to its peripheral structures. After the gear-returning ordeal the journey seemed positively relaxing; still, by the time they reached the hotel lobby Numair was muttering that they ought to have taken a taxi. 

"Don't be silly," Daine said bracingly. "We're here now, and it's only nine-thirty – plenty of time to eat, and have baths, and sleep for ten hours or so."

Numair's heart sank as they approached the reception desk.

The desk clerk, surely a recent school leaver, was chewing gum, reading _Cosmopolitan_ and listening to her iPod. When they leaned over the counter she looked up, snapped her gum at them, and put the magazine down, but did not unplug her earphones. "Welcome to Calgary. How can I help you?" she inquired in tones of utter boredom.

"We'd like a room just for tonight," Daine said.

"Last name?"

"Mine or his?"

"What name is the reservation under?"

Daine blinked. "We haven't got a reservation," she explained. "We've just got here from the mountains, and we just need somewhere to stay until our flight leaves tomorrow."

"Oh." The clerk, whose name badge indicated that she was called "Ashleigh," frowned in puzzlement. "Ummm … what kind of room do you want? Two doubles? Queen? King? Smoking or non-smoking?"

Daine glanced at Numair, who shrugged, much too tired to care. "King, non-smoking," she said at last.

"OK. Ummm … last name?"

"Salmalín," Daine said wearily, and then, seeing Ashleigh's glassy-eyed look, spelled it slowly.

Ashleigh typed the name into her computer, then frowned. "The computer says there's no reservation for you," she said.

* * *

"Sweetheart, have you seen my—" Numair, wearing clean trousers but no shirt, stopped in the bathroom doorway with his mouth open. It was nearly eleven o'clock; they had been in possession of their room for less than half an hour, and he half expected some other guest to walk in on them at any moment.

Daine, who was just stepping out of the shower, frowned at him. "What?" she asked, reaching for a towel.

He handed her one, still gazing raptly at her, and as she wrapped it around herself her frown deepened. "Leave off staring, 'Mair, please," she said. "You're making me right nervous."

Numair blinked and rubbed his eyes with one hand. "I'm sorry, love," he said. "It's just that you look—" He stopped. How _did_ she look? Clean, of course, for the first time in most of a fortnight; glowing pink from the hotel's generous supply of hot water; but that wasn't it. It wasn't that she had gained weight, or lost it, either; her slender waist, her delicate wrists and strongly muscled legs looked just as they always had. No, he realized, what had knocked him sideways for those few moments was that she looked – there was no other word for it, really – _buxom. _Not a description he had ever imagined applying to her, and one he thought he had left off being attracted to a decade ago.

"—lovely," he finished lamely, trying not to stare.

But if this half-hearted compliment was inappropriate to the occasion, Daine gave no sign of it. "I clean up better than you expected, you mean," she said, and grinned. "Now" (she shook her tangled, wet curls at him, raining droplets of water on his bare skin) "were you planning to stand there gawking all night, or will you come and help me with this rats' nest on my head?"

* * *

"I liked the airport in Calgary better," Daine said. She half expected her voice to echo in the cavernous baggage-claim area. "It was … friendlier, I suppose. This one feels like …" 

"Like a barn," Numair offered.

"Very funny. Barns smell _much_ nicer than this." She chose to ignore his raised eyebrow. "More like an aeroplane hangar, I'd say."

"What a peculiar coincidence."

"Oh, for …"

They stood about for what seemed like a tremendous while waiting for some sign of life from the luggage carousel. Finally Daine, with a sigh, sat down on its outer rail and leaned her elbows on her rucksack.

"My mama says dat's _dangerous_," said a small voice near her left shoulder.

Daine jumped, startled, and turned her head toward the voice; standing a foot or so away from her was a very small girl, surely no more than three, gazing disapprovingly at her and sucking on one index finger. The child had long, straight honey-coloured hair in two untidy plaits; she wore a pink gingham frock, a fleece jumper and grubby sandals, and under one arm she carried a large stuffed monkey.

"Your mama's quite right," said a more familiar voice on Daine's right. Numair had crouched down so that his shoulders, if not quite his face, were level with their new acquaintance. "Sitting on the luggage carousel is _very_ dangerous, and Daine is going to stop doing it immediately, aren't you, Daine."

Daine stood up.

"You're very very tall," said the little girl, studying Numair. "You're even taller dan my Daddy, and he's the tallest in my family." She pronounced this last word carefully, enunciating all three syllables.

"I am very tall," Numair agreed cheerfully. "Watch this."

He unfolded himself to his full height, the better, Daine realized, to look around for anyone who might be missing a small girl.

"I'm Daine," she said, crouching down herself.

"I'm Dina," said that lady. "My name starts wif a D."

"That's very funny, Dina, 'cos mine does, too. How old are you? Are you _five_?" At any moment, she was thinking, the child would realize she had lost her parents and begin to howl; best to distract her as long as possible.

Dina giggled. "Noooo. I'm _free_." She held up three damp fingers.

"What about your monkey?" Daine went on. "He looks very soft. May I pat him? Has he got a name?"

Dina offered the toy to be patted; it was, indeed, very soft. "His name is Bid Monkey," she said. "Because he's bidder dan my udder monkey."

Daine grinned. "Very sensible," she said. She cast about for topics of conversation. "Have you got any animals at home? A dog, or a cat, or …?"

"Unh-uh," Dina replied, shaking her head sadly. "My daddy is allergic to cats and doddies and bunny-rabbits, and even _mouses_."

"That's very sad."

Dina nodded. "Mama says maybe when we det a new 'partment I can have a fish, or a turtle."

"Oh, turtles are lovely. D'you know what I've got at home? In our back garden, we have some hedgehogs. They live under the shrubbery and eat slugs and things. Is your daddy allergic to those?"

"What's _hedgehods_?" A puzzled frown.

"A hedgehog is—" Daine's description of _erinacidae_ was cut short by a voice, tinged with panic, calling "Dina! Deeeeeena!"

A harassed-looking woman of about Daine's own age, wavy chocolate-coloured hair escaping from a knot low on her neck, approached at a sort of staggering run, hampered by the two rucksacks and the large, plastic-swathed child's carseat she was carrying. Numair, who had been waving at her with both arms, reached quickly to relieve her of the most awkward of these objects, and she dropped to her knees to embrace her offspring.

"Dina, Mummy was so _worried_! I told you and told you to stay with me so you wouldn't get lost—"

"I wasn't _lost_, Mama," Dina protested. "I was talkin' to dis _lady_."

Dina's mother glanced distractedly up at Daine, then at Numair, still standing with his long arms round the carseat, and appeared to decide that they did not look threatening. "Thank you _so_ much," she said. "She keeps getting interested in things and wandering off, and pestering people—it's so hard to keep track of her in a place this size—and it takes _so long_ for the luggage to come off the plane—"

"Not to worry," Daine said. "She was no trouble at all, honestly. We've had a lovely chat. And she's very safety conscious," she added with a grin. "Told me off for sitting on the edge of the carousel, and quite right, too."

While they were speaking this last had finally begun to move, and cases and assorted other objects were trundling rapidly by. "There's our bag—_stay still_," said Dina's mother sternly, reaching for a small black-leather case with a wide pink ribbon tied to one handle. Numair helped her unwrap the carseat and balance it on top of the suitcase; Daine helped Dina get her small rucksack on, and, after waving away more professions of gratitude, she and Numair watched the two of them amble toward the exit. As they disappeared through the automatic doors, Daine heard that small voice one last time: "Mama, can we have a pet _hedgehod_?"

* * *

"Daine! Numair! We're over here!"

Emerging, suitcase-less, from the baggage-claim area, they looked around for Laurel and spotted her at the edge of the crowd, grinning and waving her arms above her head.

"These are my kids – Ben's ten and Emma's six," Laurel said, when they had made their way through the crush and explained to their sympathetic hostess about the missing case. Ben was a solid, sun-tanned blond nearly as tall as Daine, Emma a lanky urchin with scabby knees, wild blonde curls and a missing front tooth. "Emma, Ben, this is Dr—"

"Daine and Numair," Daine interposed, gently. "Pleased to meet you, Emma and Ben."

The children, instead of returning the greeting, gaped at them, and Emma stood on tiptoe to whisper something to her brother.

"Read a lot of Harry Potter, have they?" Daine inquired. Laurel nodded, looking puzzled.

"I know what you're thinking," Daine went on, this time addressing Ben and Emma: "He looks just like Professor Snape." Ben, who obviously felt he was too old for this sort of thing, went pink and looked at his toes. "Don't worry – Numair's actually a very nice man. He does know lots of magic tricks, though," she added, grinning.

On cue, Numair frowned slightly and leaned down to pull a coin from behind Emma's ear. She giggled, delighted, when he presented it to her, saying sternly, but with twinkling eyes, "You've not made a very good job of washing behind your ears, Miss."

"What kind of money is that?" Ben demanded, inspecting it. "Is it real?"

Daine made a show of examining the artefact from all angles. "Hmm," she said at last. "It's fifty pee. How funny" (here she winked at Ben) "you should have a British coin behind your ear! You can't spend that here, Emma, but it might make a nice souvenir to show your friends. Would you like to keep it, or shall I change it for a loonie?"

"Keep it," Emma said firmly. "I like it. It's _heptagonal_."

Laurel shook her head with a rueful grin. "You see what I put up with?"


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: **When we took my daughter to the zoo for her birthday last week, I realized that I had made a major tactical error: there are, in fact, no Asian (Indian) elephants at the Toronto Zoo. So I had to make something up. Sorry about that.**  
**

Also: the little button that inserts breaks in the text isn't working for some reason -- it's not that I suddenly forgot how to do that :P.

**Update A/N:** Ack! Post in haste, repent at leisure. Some mistakes fixed, but others no doubt remain.

The usual **disclaimers** apply.

**----------------------------------- **

**Chapter 12: Toronto, 2–3 August **

_Dedicated to Patsy, the Toronto Zoo's African elephant matriarch, 1966–2006._

As a veterinary student, Daine had spent a great deal of time at the launderette near her shared flat, and had sometimes, when not watching where she was going, walked past the enormous grille that vented all the dryers to the outdoors. Stepping out of the air-conditioned chill of the terminal into a Toronto heat-wave – even at half eight in the evening – felt very much the same.

Daine gasped as the hot, wet air slapped at her skin; inhaling it felt worse yet. "Steady on, love," Numair murmured, putting one hand between her shoulder blades and steering her forward. "Just a bit farther."

Laurel led the way through a bewildering multi-level car park to the family vehicle, a battered navy-blue Toyota mini-van of indeterminate vintage whose rear bumper was festooned with Toronto Zoo stickers – and one that read, in florid Gothic lettering, "Mediaevalists do it with illumination".

Laurel, misunderstanding Numair's chuckle as he read this last, grinned ruefully. "I know," she said. "Jan and I always swore we'd never buy a mini-van, but there we were with two kids and two Labs, and then Ben started playing hockey, and before we knew it …"

Emma and Ben were scrambling into the back of the vehicle; Daine followed them, leaving the front passenger seat for Numair and his long legs. The rear windows seemed not to be openable, which gave her pause; but once they had cleared the tangle of overlapping roads and construction signage that led from the terminal to the motorway, she was almost grateful to be shut inside the van. "That," she heard Numair remark to Laurel, "is a _very_ busy motorway."

"This one?" Laurel returned. "This is only the Gardiner Expressway. You should see the four-oh-one – it's sixteen lanes, and probably bumper-to-bumper at this time of day."

Daine, in the rear seat with Emma, shuddered.

"Are you okay, Daine?" Laurel asked, peering at her via the rear-view mirror. "If you're feeling queasy, let me know—"

"Not queasy," Daine managed, rather puzzled that her friend should think this was the problem. "Just, em, thankful not to be on this 'four-oh-one' of yours."

———

"Daine, Numair," said Laurel, "this is my husband, Jan ten Kortenaar."

Numair and the rangy, blue-eyed Jan shook hands, grinning at each other. Daine, however, did not manage to participate in this greeting ritual; in addition to the two Labrador retrievers who had erupted from the house with Jan and were now doing their best to lick her all over, she was laughing too hard to speak.

"I'm sorry," she managed at last, wiping her eyes. "It's just that I've never seen Numair look _up_ at anyone before …"

Laurel and the children chuckled and disentangled her from the dogs. Numair and his six-foot-ten-inch new friend, however, were not present to enjoy the joke; they had already disappeared into the tall, narrow, creeper-encrusted house, carrying the visitors' rucksacks and discussing in animated tones a poem by Christine de Pisan whose interpretation had apparently been worrying Numair for some time.

———

After dinner Emma and Ben dragged Daine off to show her their turtles, rabbits, and tarantula. Snatches of animated conversation and explosions of laughter drifted downstairs to the kitchen, where Laurel, Jan and Numair sat among the remains of the late meal, drinking tea, with dogs sleeping on their feet.

"The kids are smitten, all right," said Jan.

"I told you," Laurel grinned. "And they've been pleasant to each other for almost three straight hours. Hey, Numair, can you and Daine stay a few weeks?"

Numair shook his head, laughing. "Daine's nearly at the end of her holidays," he explained, "and our … pet-sitter will want her life back, I should think. But it's kind of you to offer."

"Kind, nothing," Laurel retorted. "I haven't seen Ben get this enthused about anything that wasn't hockey or a computer game for … well, a long time, anyway."

"Daine does have that effect on people."

"This is such a tricky stage," said Laurel, with a sigh. "Not as bad as the teens, from what I gather, but trust me, you should enjoy the baby stage while you can …"

She had spoken light-heartedly, old hand to new recruit; to her surprise, Numair looked very sad. "I hope we shall, someday," he said, staring mournfully into his mug of tea.

Laurel, about to ask what on earth he meant, was stopped by her husband's warning look. "Well, right now, I think we should all get to bed," she said instead, rising briskly from the table. "Honey, can you go wrangle the kids? I'll clean up."

"I'll help," Numair offered; Laurel waved him away. "After what you two have been through, I'm surprised you didn't fall asleep right here at the table. Go to bed, already. You can wash dishes tomorrow if you really want to."

Numair protested, but she could tell his heart wasn't in it.

Jan had gone upstairs; from above came more energetic protests from Ben, and Laurel heard Emma declare loudly, "Daddy, I want _Aunt Daine_ to put me to bed."

———

"You're not coming to the Zoo with us?" Daine made an effort not to sound disappointed.

Clearly, Numair was not fooled. "I'm sorry, dear heart," he said, genuine contrition in his voice. "Jan's promised to show me the University's rare-book-and-manuscript library – it's a phenomenal collection apparently – and it won't be open tomorrow. Besides, vetkin," he went on, "Khaja doesn't even know me. She'll want to see _you._"

Daine sighed. "I know," she said. "I rather thought you might like to meet her."

Between them hung the unspoken words, _given that she saved both our lives._

"I'll tell you what," Numair said after a moment. "If you like, I'll go back with you tomorrow. We can go on the bus if Laurel has got other plans."

"I shall hold you to that, you know."

"Yes, love, I know. Now—" Numair stood up from his seat on the edge of their bed and offered Daine a hand up— "oughtn't we to go and have our breakfast?"

———

Laurel cornered Daine after breakfast. "You haven't told him yet?" she demanded.

Daine stared at her, bewildered: "Told who, what?"

"Told your _husband_," Laurel said, slowly and patiently, "that he's going to be a dad."

Daine felt, if anything, more flummoxed than before. "But he isn't," she said. "I mean – not that I know of. We've been trying for ages, but—"

"Well, you sure look pregnant to me. You ate three helpings of breakfast, and that t-shirt _definitely _wasn't so tight across the chest the last time I saw it." Daine looked down. The t-shirt in question – a present for her eighteenth birthday – was a memorable one, vivid orange and emblazoned with the bright-purple handprints of three small Coopers; and it certainly did look more … _form-fitting_ today than it had ever done before. More, perhaps, than could reasonably be blamed on over-indulgence at pancake breakfasts. "Peed on a stick lately?" Laurel continued.

Daine squeezed her eyes shut and gave her head a little shake, certain she had heard wrong. When she opened her eyes again, her friend was still looking at her expectantly. "Em … I think you're speaking Canadian," she ventured.

Laurel laughed. "Sorry about that," she said. "I meant, when was the last time you did a pregnancy test?"

"I've no idea," Daine admitted, "but, look, just last week I had—"

"Breakthrough bleeding," Laurel said confidently. "I had it with both of mine, all through the first trimester. Lots of people do."

An irrational surge of hope made Daine feel almost dizzy. "_Really_?" she asked, her voice a little breathless. The bleeding _had_ been lighter than usual – though she had hardly noticed at the time, being so preoccupied with other things – and it had gone away after only three days …

"Really," Laurel confirmed. "Honestly, Daine, I'd put money on it. Don't take my word for it, though – we'll stop at Shoppers on the way back from the Zoo, and you can pick up a test."

———

At eight-thirty Laurel and Daine – having seen their husbands off to the subway station, chatting amicably in a bizarre mixture of English, French, and Latin – herded Emma and Ben into the mini-van and began their journey. Their first stop was to decant Emma, and a bag of gear nearly as big as she was, at the nearby Riverdale Park for something called "soccer camp"; next they dropped Ben at the adjacent school, where he was to spend the day playing basketball. By ten minutes to nine they were eastbound on the busy and variously populated Kingston Road, headed for the Toronto Zoo.

"So," said Laurel, eyes on the traffic ahead, "tell me the long version."

"Beg pardon?" Daine, startled, drew back from her open window.

"Of your story with Khaja," Laurel clarified. "You said the short version is that she saved your life – now I want the long one. We have time now, and no audience."

Daine thought for a moment. "It's complicated," she said. "And rather far-fetched. And when I said 'long' – we could be at it all morning."

The older woman glanced at her, then returned her attention to her driving. "You have somewhere else to be?" she queried mildly. When Daine did not immediately reply, she went on: "Look, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to. But if she were _your _patient, wouldn't you want to know?"

"Well, when you put it like that …"

There was a long silence. Finally, Daine took a deep breath and began: "There was this conference on bioterrorism …"

———

By the time she had finished, they were in the zoo's staff car park, facing each other across the gear-box of the van; Daine was in tears, Laurel staring in disbelief. Belatedly, she reached back for a box of tissues and handed it to Daine, who blew her nose and mopped her eyes. "Sorry about the waterworks," she said.

"I want you to know," Laurel said slowly, "that if anybody else told me that story, I wouldn't believe it."

"But you do believe me?" Daine blew her nose again.

"I spent two weeks with you. I saw those rabbits on the campus, and all those animals at the zoo. Sandy told me what happened with the horses. I don't know what it is about you, but, frankly, your being rescued by a bunch of escaped wild animals is the most plausible part of the whole thing."

Daine laughed damply. "You can ask Numair," she offered. "I've probably missed out a few bits – most of the exciting stuff happened while I was stuck underground."

"I'll think about it," said Laurel dubiously. "But I have a feeling I'm already going to have nightmares. Now," she added after a moment, sounding more like herself, "let's go and see our elephant."

———

The Zoo was vast, easily the largest Daine had ever seen. She was torn between wanting to see Khaja as soon as possible and wishing she could spare the time to meet and become acquainted with the hundreds of other interesting and engaging beasts who made their homes here. Even without many stops, their progress was slowed both by the crowds of zoo visitors and by the thick, moist, thirty-five-degree air.

"The habitat is still a bit makeshift," Laurel was warning her, as they passed the Bactrian camels, which came to the edge of their enclosure to get a better look at Daine. "We've never had an Indian elephant before, but we were offered Khaja all expenses paid, so to speak, and I guess the committee just couldn't resist. I feel bad for her, though – the habitat's being built around her, which must be really stressful, and she's all by herself. Did she have a herd where she came from?"

Daine shook her head. "_That_ was a makeshift collection," she said scornfully. "Half the beasts had been poached from game reserves in Africa. So, then, the pregnancy—"

"AI," Laurel confirmed. "The first successful try in an Asian elephant, by the way. We're very proud. And it's gone beautifully so far – Khaja's doing just great."

They were nearly there now; Daine caught an unmistakable whiff of elephant on the furnace-like breeze. Then they rounded a corner in the path, and there – trumpeting a welcome so enthusiastic that startled passersby jumped and Laurel clapped her hands over her ears – was an unmistakably pregnant Khaja.

Daine gave a delighted whoop and, despite the heat, broke into a run. "Hold on!" she heard Laurel call; "Don't climb the fence, for heaven's sake. We'll go in the back."

"I'll be right there," Daine promised Khaja, dropping back to follow Laurel. "Sorry," she muttered.

"No worries," said Laurel good-humouredly; "it's not as if I wasn't warned." When Daine raised an eyebrow at this, she went on, "Numair told me you'd probably do something like that. He said the first time you went to the Edinburgh Zoo you tried to go swimming with the sea lions."

Daine frowned. "Well," she said, "I shall have a few things to say to _him_ when we get back …"

But the moment Laurel turned the key and they passed into Khaja's indoor habitat, she forgot her annoyance in the joy of greeting her long-lost friend.

———

Laurel had arranged to have Khaja declared off-exhibit for the morning, and after a quick once-over of her patient she tactfully left Daine and her elephant alone. She lingered for a long moment in the doorway, however, thinking over the bizarre tale Daine had recently told her and watching as Daine clung to Khaja's foreleg, murmuring endearments through her tears, while Khaja examined Daine minutely with the tip of her trunk.

Suddenly it was easy to imagine her friendly little elephant carrying this odd woman to the rescue of her man.

As Laurel turned away from the keeper's door of the habitat, she nearly collided with her least favourite colleague. "I heard you were bringing your friend the Beastmaster to work today," he said cheerfully, trying to see past her through the window.

"Beast _Whisperer,_" said Laurel, annoyed. "And it's Dr Sarrasri to you, Martin. She's talking to Khaja, and I promised her they wouldn't be disturbed for a while – they have a lot to catch up on. Did you need something?"

"Jack wants you to bring her by the office before you leave. He says he needs to talk to her."

"Jack couldn't call my cell to tell me that?" Laurel inquired.

Martin shrugged, and she sighed – no doubt he had volunteered to deliver the message in person, so that he could tell every subsequent person he talked to today that he had seen Laurel's peculiar friend in action. "Come on, Martin," she said. "We do have work to do, you know. Or are you on vacation today?"

Grumbling, he followed her back toward the camels.

———

At twelve o'clock Laurel returned to the Eurasia area of the zoo and unlocked the door to the elephant house. The scene that greeted her was comical: Khaja – whose pregnant belly, in the manner of pachyderms, extended nearly two feet on either side of her body – sat on her haunches against one wall, while Daine sat cross-legged between her forelegs, chatting calmly as to a bosom friend over coffee.

When she spotted Laurel, Daine jumped to her feet, patting Khaja's forehead in a "just a moment" gesture, and loped across the habitat to meet her. "Khaja told me the strangest thing," she said without preamble, and Laurel, who even yesterday might have queried the wording of this statement, simply asked, "What?"

"You know what you told me this morning?"

Laurel nodded, smiling.

"She says … You're going to laugh," Daine accused.

"I won't. I promise."

"She says she thinks it's wonderful that we're each expecting a calf."

———

"I almost forgot," Laurel said, when they had taken their leave of Khaja, with many promises from Daine to return the next day "with my mate", and were retracing their steps past the mule deer and the Bactrian camels. "Jack Taves wants to see you."

Daine looked at her, confused; she was still too overwhelmed with conflicting sensations to process anything she heard with her usual efficiency. If she had hesitated to believe Laurel, how could she so easily believe Khaja? Yet she was sure, somehow, that Khaja was right.

"Jack Taves," Laurel prompted, "the guy you said you knew from the feline VIN?"

The light went on. "Yes, of course," Daine said. "I'm sorry, Laurel, my head's in the clouds …"

Laurel grinned. "So you don't believe me, but you believe an elephant," she teased.

Daine stopped in her tracks. "How did you know I was thinking that?" she demanded.

"I didn't," said Laurel; now it was her turn to look confused. "Were you?" When Daine nodded, she sighed and said, "Look – I still think you should take a test. Okay?"

"Okay." Daine sighed in return, thinking – not for the first time in recent months – _I really miss my mum._

———

Jack Taves was a stocky, suntanned man of forty or so, whose straight blond hair, sticking up from unruly cowlicks, framed a cherubic face with lively blue eyes behind thick spectacles.

"It's _so_ nice to finally meet you in person," he told Daine, shaking her by the hand so enthusiastically that she half expected her feet to leave the floor. "How did you like the curriculum committee? They must have money to burn out there – when I recommended you to the Dean, I never actually thought they'd spring for airfare from Scotland …"

"So it was _you_!" Daine exclaimed. That explained more than it didn't.

"Sure," said Jack. "I didn't realize it was this big mystery. They wanted someone who knew about big cats, and I couldn't go, so I gave them a bunch of names from our list, but I told them you were the best there was. The best there _is_, I mean." He frowned, an odd expression on his relentlessly cheerful face.

"Well, thank you," said Daine, and meant it. "It was a very … _enlightening_ experience. I didn't want to do it, you know," she admitted. "My husband talked me into it – but I'm _so _glad he did."

"Yes, Laurel mentioned that your husband tagged along. She says he's almost as ridiculously tall as hers." Jack, who was not much taller than Daine herself, grinned engagingly. "Do you want to come see my cats?" he asked.

Daine didn't wait to be asked twice.

———

Numair had spent a very pleasant day amongst the manuscripts and codices of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of Toronto. Between Jan and the Thomas Fisher librarians, he felt he could not have asked for more knowledgeable and interested guides to its mysteries, and he hoped Daine had had an equally enjoyable day with Laurel and her beasts.

He was eager to tell her all about the fascinating things he had read – though prepared, of course, for that particular look in her eyes that meant _No more lists, Numair, and I mean it – _and to hear about what she had been up to.

But when he followed Jan in the front door, he was immediately herded into the "family room," where Daine perched at the edge of a battered armchair, clutching something in both hands and looking up at him with shining eyes.

She sprang to her feet, laughing and weeping, and threw herself into his arms; he caught her and held her tight, burying his face in her soft, fragrant hair.

"'Mair," she whispered against his cheek, "you're going to be a dad."

———

**Note:** AI in this case is not "artificial intelligence" but "artificial insemination." In fact nobody has ever successfully done AI on an Asian elephant, but the Toronto Zoo is one of the institutions working on this problem. And, hey, this is fiction.


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: This really is the last chapter -- only an epiloguey sort of thing to go. Thank you so much for all the lovely reviews! This is my first story to go into triple-digit reviews, and I am rather indecently excited about this ;). And thank you to mistywabbit for help with section breaks.**

The usual **disclaimers** apply.

* * *

**Chapter 13: Toronto, Edinburgh, 4–6 August **

For a long, long moment there was no sound in the room but her breathing and his, no movement of any sort. She hung in his arms, her face against his shoulder and her arms about his neck, and wondered.

At last she raised her head and pulled away, trying to see his face.

He blinked at her, his dark eyes wide, and opened his mouth – then shut it again. When this performance had been repeated, Daine at last realized something: for perhaps the first time in his life, certainly the first time since she had known him, Numair had lost the power of speech.

She began to laugh.

Numair shook his head, rather like a dog shaking water from its ears. Again he drew breath to speak, then shut his mouth again. "How do—" he said at last, then, "When did—"

"This morning." Daine answered his second question first. "Khaja told me. Well, Laurel told me first, only I didn't quite believe her."

"But you did believe Khaja. Wait – what am I saying? Of course you did." He set her down gently and sat down in the chair she had vacated, pulling her into his lap. "But – please forgive me for asking this – are you _sure_?"

"Of course!" Daine said indignantly. "Oh – I meant to show you this." Opening her left hand, she held out the odd-shaped plastic object she had now been clutching for three-quarters of an hour, the two round windows of which each showed a straight blue line.

Numair still looked shell-shocked. "See," she said patiently, "you remember how it works." He had seen several of these, though not for some time – not since, unable to bear the compassion in his eyes, she had begun buying them in secret and stowing them in her locker at the Zoo. And, of course, neither of them had ever seen one quite like this. "That line's to show the test is working, and _that_ one—" pointing with one finger— "means it's positive."

She paused again, waiting for a reaction. When none came, she couldn't resist a little gentle needling: "_Some _husbands would be pleased, you know. Possibly even … _excited._"

He looked down at her, and her breath hitched: rarely had she seen his love for her so clearly written in his face. Then he kissed her, softly at first but with ever greater urgency, until – when at last he let her go – she was dizzy and breathing hard.

"Does that … answer … your question?" he demanded.

Daine nodded. It was astounding – considering the way he usually talked – how much Numair could manage to say without using words.

A flash of movement drew her eyes to the door. It had been shut, she was certain of that, but now it was just slightly ajar, and the late-afternoon sunlight glinted on one – two – _six_ pairs of eyes.

"Don't look now," she whispered to Numair, "but we've got a bit of an audience …"

* * *

Laurel and Jan insisted on a congratulatory dinner out; Numair and Daine, still feeling rather dazed, allowed themselves to be propelled out of the house and up the street, then into and out of a streetcar and a subway train, and into an unassuming Indian restaurant on Danforth Avenue. 

"I know it looks like a hole in the wall," Laurel assured them in a low voice, as though one of them had said something to that effect, "but the food is amazing. Especially the pakoras."

The food was indeed delicious, and Daine ate a great deal of it, much to everyone else's amusement. "You don't _really_ have to eat enough for two, you know," Laurel teased her gently. "It's just an expression."

"But I'm _hungry_," Daine said. It seemed a perfectly reasonable statement, and she was rather put out when the rest of the party dissolved into gales of laughter.

* * *

"I feel a bit stupid," Daine confessed, "not to have thought of it before. The bras not fitting … the falling asleep …" she paused, shaking her head ruefully. "And the animals, of course." 

"The animals?" Numair, propped on one elbow beside her, raised an eyebrow. "Which ones?"

"_All_ of them." Daine waved a hand vaguely. "Especially the ones that wouldn't stay out of our tent. I kept being surprised at how friendly they all were, and reckoning it must be something about Canadian beasts, or perhaps they just weren't used to me … I don't know. But it wasn't that at all, it was …"

"They were trying to tell you something?"

She nodded.

Suddenly Numair grinned hugely and his eyes developed a mischievous twinkle. "I can't _wait_," he said, "to see how Griffin reacts."

* * *

**From: **aly cooper

**To: **Sarrasri, Daine

**Subject:** luggage

hi aunt daine,

someone from air canada rang. they've got your case, but it's gone to … let me see if i can remember … montreal, newark (sp?), paris, madrid & barcelona. i think that's right. they asked where you're staying and wanted to send it back there but i told them just to send it here. i hope that's ok.

love,

aly xo

* * *

Numair and Daine came down to breakfast looking vague and bleary-eyed. A good-morning greeting from Benson and Hedges, the two resident Labrador retrievers, nearly knocked them over. 

"Did the thunderstorm keep you up?" Laurel inquired sympathetically.

"Thunderstorm?" they asked in unison, then looked at each other and smiled.

Laurel rolled her eyes and went back to supervising the waffle iron. Emma and Ben, however, were not so easily put off.

"It was _awesome_," Ben enthused. "I thought for sure the power would go off."

"The lightning was _this close_," Emma added, holding her finger and thumb a hair's breadth apart. "I counted. There's a huge tree branch on the sidewalk down the block, I saw it when I took the dogs out. It was a really cool storm."

"We must have slept through it," Numair said; his voice was even, but Laurel saw that his face was crimson under his tan. Daine had suddenly become extremely interested in the contents of her coffee mug.

Jan emerged into the small, slightly chaotic kitchen, his blond hair still wet from the shower, and grinned at the assembled company. "I hear we're all going to the zoo today," he said cheerfully.

A pink-cheeked Daine looked up at him, wearing an expression of concern. "You lot needn't come with us if you've other things to do," she said. "We can always go on the bus. It's no trouble."

"But we _want _to go!" Emma protested.

"And we haven't been to the zoo in _forever,_" Ben put in.

"About three weeks, to be exact," said their mother. "It's fine, Daine. It'll be fun."

* * *

As they made their leisurely way through the Saturday crowds at the Zoo, Numair stared in fascination at the enormous diversity around him. He had always thought of Edinburgh as offering considerable ethnic and cultural variety, but, if this crowd – and the ones he had observed during yesterday's streetcar and subway journeys – was any indication, Toronto must indeed be, as he had read somewhere recently, the most multicultural city in the world. In less than half an hour he had heard snatches of conversation in five languages he recognized, and at least three more he didn't. 

"The sheer diversity here is astonishing," he murmured to Daine, who walked beside him, her small hand in his.

"It is," she agreed, smiling up at him. "There are more than five thousand animals here, and nearly five hundred separate species."

"I meant the people, actually, vetkin."

"The people?" Daine looked around vaguely. "Yes, I suppose so," she said.

"You hadn't noticed?" Numair inquired, amused.

She shook her heard. "I never do," she explained, inadvertently answering a question that had been troubling him for some time. "Not with so many beasts about. It's the same at home."

Numair felt strangely nervous about the object of their visit. He had heard all the stories about Daine's ride to his rescue, of course; he had seen a number of her four-legged allies, and knew quite well that he owed his life – in a painfully direct sense – to the lion who had leapt into the path of a bullet meant for him. _Eitan was the lion's name – "strong one." I'll have that nightmare as long as I live, I think. _He had a vague memory, too, of being helped to his feet by two extraordinarily hirsute people, one black and one ginger-coloured: in fact, he would later learn, an orang-utan and a gorilla. But even those aspects of the experience had a surreal quality; events he had not himself witnessed seemed more inaccessible yet.

"'Mair? Are you OK?" Daine was looking up at him anxiously; had he spoken aloud?

"I'm fine, love," he assured her. "Only remembering."

She nodded, understanding perfectly what sort of remembering he meant.

When they reached their destination, Numair followed his accustomed procedure when dealing with animals, which was to let Daine lead the way. He was not as accustomed as she to the smells of pachyderms, a fact she seemed to appreciate, for she went slowly, giving him time to acclimate.

"Khaja!" she called softly, as they approached. "Khaja, it's me! I've brought someone to meet you."

The elephant looked up – Daine and Laurel had said it was a small one, but to Numair it looked impressively gargantuan – and trumpeted. Numair winced slightly at the sound; Daine merely gave a cheerful wave in return. Then, ponderously, Khaja trudged toward them, her lifted trunk questing ahead of her. She greeted Daine with what could only be affection, then turned her attention to Numair.

Encouraged by Daine, he put up a hand to touch the finely creased hide of the elephant's forehead; she stared down at him with small, long-lashed eyes and delicately explored his face, hair, and upper body with the finger-like tip of her trunk. "That _tickles_," he protested in a half-whisper.

As though she had heard this comment and was not much impressed by it, Khaja took hold of Numair's hair with her trunk and tugged on it – gently, but hard enough to make her point.

"Sorry," he said. "Do carry on."

"She likes you," Daine said, after some time. "She—" she chuckled softly. "She's glad we rescued you."

"Thanks ever so," Numair said dryly.

* * *

"I don't suppose you can ever really get used to that," Jan commented later, as they watched Daine lean on the rail around the giraffe habitat, scratching a female giraffe behind the ear. 

"Yes and no," Numair confessed. "It doesn't frighten me the way it did at first – I know now she's safe as houses. I must admit, though, I'm still not able to … to take it for granted, the way she does."

"You two are going to have _very_ interesting kids."

Numair thought about this, and rather wished he hadn't.

* * *

**From: **Sarrasri, Daine 

**To: **aly cooper

**Subject:** RE: luggage

Hello, Aly!

Thanks for dealing with the luggage crisis (!). You handled it exactly right. We'll be home tomorrow morning as planned -- are you coming with your mum and/or dad to collect us at the airport? We've had a marvellous holiday, but I'll be very glad to be home again.

See you soon!

Love,

Daine

P.S. There's exciting news -- we'll tell you when we see you :-)

* * *

The entire family insisted on accompanying the travellers to the airport, and Benson and Hedges had to be persuaded to stay behind. "Just as well we haven't got the rest of our luggage," Daine whispered to Numair, as they all trooped across the street and clambered into the van; "we'd have had to leave someone else behind to fit in one more case." 

As they drove off, she looked back at the house – its waist-high wrought-iron fence obscured by a riotous growth of morning glories, the profusion of half-wild flowers and herbs that filled the small front garden, the brickwork in need of pointing and the cheerful blue paint peeling from the woodwork, the blond and black canine faces panting at the bay window – with something very like regret. Of all the places they had visited on this journey, this had felt the most like home.

"Can you come back next summer?" Emma begged them, as they stood in the by now familiar Pearson Terminal 1, an island in the current of travellers and their families and friends moving toward the security gate in one direction and the extravagantly over-decorated cafeteria in the other. "_Please_?"

Numair and Daine looked at each other and smiled. "We'd love to, Emma," Daine said, "but this time next year we'll be a wee bit busy, I'm afraid. Perhaps in a few more years …"

"I have a _way_ better idea," Ben announced. "You have to get someone in Edinburgh to invite Dad to be a visiting professor, or give a lecture or something, and then _we_ can all come visit _you._"

Daine, about to explain that it wasn't quite as easy as that, saw Numair begin to look speculative, and guessed that he was making a mental list of people he knew who might be in a position to issue such an invitation. "We'll see," she said instead. Then she looked at her watch and, startled, realized that they had only twenty minutes to get through security and onto their flight. "We've got to go, I'm afraid," she said, tugging at her husband's elbow to bring him back to earth. "Thanks awfully for everything …"

The next forty-five minutes were a blur of noisy leave-taking, repeated explanations to airport security staff of the perfectly innocent contents of their rucksacks, a mad scramble to locate the appropriate departure gate. At last they were in their seats in the Air Canada 747, the emergency procedures lecture over with, each separately performing the small rituals that would enable them to survive the flight to Heathrow: Numair stowing the packs, extracting the books and papers with which he intended to occupy himself during the night, and carefully arranging his long limbs so as to maximize the available space; Daine making a small nest of pillows and blankets around herself and readying her iPod in anticipation of the moment, once they were in the air, when the flight attendant would announce that she could use it.

There was another pre-flight ritual, too.

"Ready, love?" Numair asked her softly, taking her hand and leaning down to brush his cheek against her hair.

"As I'll ever be," she replied, and closed her eyes.

Daine could ride in cars, now, easily enough, though it was better when the weather was fine and she could have all the windows open. Trains and buses, allowing as they did a degree of freedom of movement, had always bothered her rather less. But there was something about aeroplanes – about knowing that she was vacuum-sealed in a long metal tube thousands of metres above the ground – that could make her usual mild claustrophobia surge into full-blown panic. She had developed a variety of coping mechanisms, but the only thing that reliably helped was this.

"Just a little longer now, sweetheart …" Numair's low, gentle voice seemed to pull her into some other space of existence, where the cramped quarters and the sealed windows didn't matter and there was nothing but herself and him. "We've reached the runway – there, we're accelerating … and now we're in the air …"

It hardly mattered what he said, only that he stayed with her, his voice in her ears, his hand enclosing hers. Tomorrow, when she was herself again, she would thank him for this, would thank whatever twists of fate had led her into the arms of this gentle, infinitely patient man. For now, all she could do was concentrate on his voice and on keeping her breathing slow and even.

By the time the drinks cart reached their row, three-quarters of an hour into the flight, Daine was fast asleep.

* * *

The inside of the 747 was shrouded in darkness – except for the tiny puddle of light over the right-hand window seat exactly halfway to the back of Hospitality Class, where Numair sat silently correcting the page proofs of a book chapter and watching his wife sleep. 

Numair had never been much good at sleeping on aeroplanes. He might have envied Daine her ability to do so, had he not understood so well that it was her only escape from crushing panic. Nevertheless, he thought wryly, after this experience he was going to make sure that she was in charge of doing all the unpacking, handing out the presents and setting the house to rights: when they got home, he was going to go upstairs for a good long sleep.

The note from Lindhall Reed, the book's editor, that had accompanied the page proofs reminded him that he had yet to submit the requested paragraph of acknowledgement, and it was to the composition of this brief text that Numair now turned his attention. Having, in his small, neat script, thanked Lindhall himself, the trust that had helped to fund the research documented in the chapter, and the assorted colleagues who had read and critiqued various iterations thereof, he put down his pen and considered. After a moment he took it up again and added another sentence:

_And, finally, to Daine Sarrasri – beloved wife, trusted colleague and ingenious research assistant – without whose boundless love for the author, and unstinting support of this and other endeavours, these words could not have been written._

When he capped his pen for the second time, Numair was smiling.

It was a little over the top for a book chapter, true. But Lindhall would understand.

* * *

"Aunt Daine! Uncle 'Mair! Over here!" 

They heard Aly long before they saw her or her parents; the entire population of Scotland appeared to have crammed itself into the arrivals level of the Glasgow airport, and it was impossible even to determine from which direction the voice came. At length, when the crowd had thinned somewhat, Numair caught a glimpse of something blue, and then, some inches below it, something orange. "There," he told Daine, pointing, and he took a firmer hold of her hand and began towing her through the mass of people.

"_There_ you are!" Alanna exclaimed, hugging Daine and reaching up to clap Numair on the shoulder. The look she gave Daine was full of speculation. "We thought you'd been trampled to death. I gather there's no need to wait for your cases to appear?"

Daine shook her head. "Why are there so many—"

"Bomb scare yesterday," George said quietly, relieving her of her rucksack before she could finish her question. "Did you not hear about this down London way? The airport was closed for six hours and everythin' rerouted elsewhere. This is the fallout, as you might say."

"Come _on_, Dad," Aly was saying impatiently. "It's _horrid_ in here. We can talk outside."

"Hear, hear," her mother agreed feelingly, and they made their way out into the pale sunshine of a Scottish morning.

Numair, heavy-eyed after his largely sleepless night and the nightmare of an early-morning terminal change at Heathrow, stopped on the pavement for a moment to put both arms around Daine. "Welcome home, vetkin," he whispered.

Then, releasing her, he added, "I'm going to sleep. Wake me when we get there."

She raised an eyebrow at him, but he was indeed dead to the world before George had pulled out of the car park.

* * *

The moment Aly unlocked the front door, Daine disappeared under a noisy tide of black and grey and parti-coloured fur and wagging tails. Strangely, Griffin did not join in the half-hysterical welcome; he had erupted through the doorway with the rest of them, but had stopped quite suddenly, sniffing, and now sat back a foot or two, slowly blinking his yellow eyes and twitching his tail. 

"That answers your question, I think," Daine said to Numair, once she had extricated her top half from the dogs and cats. She knelt in front of the large marmalade cat and lowered herself on her elbows until she could look him in the eyes. "There's no need to be jealous, Griffin," she said reasonably.

Alanna tugged at Numair's arm until he looked down at her, grinning. "Have I missed something?" she asked, _sotto voce_. "You lot haven't brought back some sort of contraband pet, have you?"

_Not for lack of trying_, Numair thought, suppressing a laugh. "Not exactly," he said. Then, raising his voice a little, "Sweetheart, I think we ought to tell them our news, don't you?"

Daine looked up at him and blushed. Alanna's violet gaze shifted from one of them to the other, and her lips curved into a half-believing grin. "Congratulations," she said, and hugged them both again.

"I _knew _it!" Aly shouted, grinning even more broadly than her mother. She turned to her father and held out one hand: "Dad, you owe me twenty pounds. Pay up!"

* * *

**A/N: I have borrowed the names Benson and Hedges for the black and golden Labs from a conductor I used to work with. This does not mean that Laurel and Jan are heavy smokers, just that they have a somewhat unusual sense of humour.**


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N:** So, here it is, the epilogue. Note that we are 9 months and a bit after 1 July of the previous year ... ;) The ending is not specially fluffy, but it's _very_ sappy, 'cos I'm like that.

I want to thank everyone for reading this and for all the encouraging and helpful feedback, which is wonderful to get. Thanks to the prodding of our own Sonnet Lacewing, authoress extraordinaire, I have got off my _tokhes_ and back to my original novel, which (while I can't match Sonnet's speed) I hope to have finished in the next few months. So if something new (other than mini-fic instalments) turns up here, it will be because something got into my head and wouldn't leave me alone -- otherwise, I will be trying to pour my writing energy, such as it is, into the non-fan-fic.

**Disclaimers** as per usual.

* * *

**Epilogue: Edinburgh, April**

Numair swung down from his bicycle and walked it in through the front gate. The day had been warm for early April, and he was tired – had been even before cycling five miles to the University in the morning and five miles back in the afternoon. For some time now Daine had been sleeping badly, and, therefore, so had he.

Spots galloped round the cottage to meet him, and when he opened the front door the dogs greeted him with what he always considered rather excessive enthusiasm. Mammoth, the big Irish wolfhound Daine and he had adopted from the SSPCA rescue some years ago, had a glint in his dark eyes as though he were trying to tell Numair something. Griffin, never enthusiastic about Numair at the best of times, held himself aloof, disdainfully preening his whiskers.

"Daine?" Numair called. "Sweetheart, are you here?"

There was no answer, which was worrying – unless it meant that she was napping upstairs, or on the sofa, or outside in the back garden.

"What about it, then?" he inquired of the assembled company. "Where's Mum?"

There was no reply. The beasts knew, presumably, but didn't care to say.

They tried the sitting-room first, but it was empty; then they trooped upstairs to check the study, the bedroom and, finally, the sometime spare bedroom, now a tidy, pristine nursery with cot, flat-topped bureau, and antique rocking-chair.

Back down the stairs they went, out into the back garden, where – as he ought to have guessed, Numair told himself – Daine was propped up sideways in the wooden swing under the arbour, asleep over her inexpert knitting. Cloud purred steadily from atop the pillows behind her head. Beside them on the grass was an enormous cardboard carton, rather battered at the corners. Stepping closer, leaning down to kiss his wife's damp forehead, Numair chuckled at the address inscribed in multi-coloured felt-tip pen on the top of the box:

DAINE, NUMAIR, & BABY SARRASRI-SALMALíN

CAERKETTON

SWANSTON VILLAGE

SCOTLAND …

The return address was in Toronto, but included no names.

Numair perched on the far end of the swing, in the gap between its right-hand arm and Daine's bare feet, which he lifted into his lap. The swing swayed a little with his weight, and he braced his feet to steady it, fearing the motion would wake her.

"Ow!" Daine exclaimed, sitting up abruptly and dislodging both the knitting and Cloud, who yowled in protest. She blinked at Numair and rubbed her eyes with one swollen hand.

"What's the matter, love?" he inquired, concerned.

"The usual thing," Daine sighed. She swung her legs down and put one hand on her prodigiously rounded belly. "You know how it is – it sleeps while I'm walking about, and does gymnastics when I try to catch thirty seconds' rest."

Numair laid his hand alongside her smaller one.

"You know," she continued, "Alanna and Miri and Thayet all told me that theirs quieted down toward the end. Even the midwife I saw today said it's unusual for it to be so active this late, 'specially since I've stopped drinking coffee altogether. It's like—" both of them flinched at a series of sharp jabs; it was followed by a disconcerting sort of wobbling rumble as the baby turned itself around. "It's like being pregnant with an _octopus._"

Numair gave his wife's shoulders a sympathetic squeeze and looked about them for something to distract her. "What's in the box?" he asked.

* * *

Daine looked at the gigantic carton and frowned. "I've no idea," she said. "One of those delivery companies brought it round. The bloke took one look at me—" a rueful chuckle— "and offered to put it wherever I liked. The house is so hot today I couldn't _bear _it, so I asked him to bring it out here where I could keep an eye on it. As it's addressed to all three of us, I thought I'd best wait till _you_ were here, at least." 

Numair's arm tightened about her shoulders again. "I know this waiting is wearing on you, love," he said. "What did the midwife say today?"

She sighed – it felt as though she were always sighing, lately. "The same as last week. 'Soon.' It was Julia I saw today – noncommittal is her S.O.P., as Alanna would say."

Numair leaned down so that his face was an inch from her belly. "Your mother," he said to it, " has had quite enough. Don't you think it's time you put in an appearance?"

Daine chuckled, which perhaps had been the point. "Come along, then," she said, heaving herself upright. "Let's open this box."

Numair's pocket knife made short work of the yards of sellotape sealing the lid. Inside the box, nestled in a mass of shredded newspapers, they found almost a dozen smaller parcels, variously wrapped in paper and fabric bags, colourful boxes and wrapping-paper patterned with tiny footprints. An envelope was sellotaped to each one.

"Hang on," said Daine, as Numair lifted out the last parcel and seemed about to abandon the box. "There's something else at the very bottom." Obediently he reached in again, probing amongst the shredded paper at the very limit of his long arm's reach. After a moment, with a triumphant grin, he straightened up and handed her a large, bright-yellow envelope on which was written, in a familiar hand, _Daine_.

She slit it carefully with Numair's knife, and drew out a card emblazoned with sunflowers. "Very cheerful," she grinned. Opening the card, she read,

_Dear Daine,_

_By the time you read this, I hope you'll already be holding your little one. In case not (my Emma was two weeks post dates!), hang in—you're almost there!_

_If we were closer, I'd have thrown you a baby shower. I figured this is the next best thing. I e-mailed everybody from the committee, and also Amy at U of C, and asked them if they'd like to send something for you, to send it to me. I thought it would be more fun to get a big box of prezzies all at once. _

_All the best, honey. You're going to love it—when you're not too tired to think, that is!_

_Jan, Ben, Emma, and Khaja send their love, too._

_Love,_

_Laurel_

Daine sniffed, touched by her friend's words and annoyed with herself for going all teary _again_ – it was the hormones, right enough, but that somehow didn't make it any less infuriating. She handed the card back to Numair, who read it through and smiled.

"Let me get you a nice cold drink," he said, "and then we can open the rest."

* * *

Amy had sent children's books: one called _ABC of Canada_, another called _Love You Forever _and a third titled, puzzlingly, _Alligator Pie_. "_Alligator Pie_ was my favourite when I was little," she had written in the accompanying card. 

Sandy's contribution was an astoundingly lifelike plush cougar cub; her card included a telephoto shot of a young radio-collared cougar exploring the edge of a mountain creek. "Kitten looks well," Numair commented. "I'd radio-collar her too, if she were mine, just to keep her out of mischief."

Daine elbowed him in the ribs.

Pritha had sent tiny Calgary Zoo romper suits and t-shirts, and a packet of minuscule socks; Laura, a dozen diaper wraps patterned with jungle animals; and Linda another round of books: _Where the Wild Things Are _and _The Paper-Bag Princess_ "for the baby", and two volumes on breastfeeding for Daine. "That's five, now," the latter said, grinning. "I shall have to feed this baby for _decades_ to justify all this expense."

"Or," Numair returned, prudently edging out of reach, "we could have a few more."

"Ask me again in six months' time," Daine groaned. "Just now, I'd as soon never be pregnant again."

Mike Lloyd in Colorado had chosen a book on fatherhood for Numair, wrapped (by his wife, his card explained) in a series of flannelette blankets patterned with daisies, sailboats, and giraffes. And Sandy's friend and colleague Jim sent Numair and Daine into gales of laughter with an obviously handmade t-shirt that read "My Mommy is the Beast Whisperer."

Laurel's present was a baby sling, a simple, practical affair beautified by the brilliant emerald batik pattern of the fabric. A note was pinned to it which read, "Someone gave me one of these when I had Ben, and it saved the day more times than I want to admit. You may have thought of this already, but it never hurts to have one more! Emma picked the colour—I hope you like green …"

When Daine lifted the soft bundle of fabric out of its box, she found beneath it another gift: a framed photo of Khaja and her eight-month-old calf, Sarisha. Again she had to scrub a hand across suddenly leaky eyes.

Bruce and Greg had clubbed together to contribute a baby carrier of the pouch-and-padded shoulder-straps variety – in size extra-large. "'This is for Numair'," Daine read aloud from the card, "'in case Laurel's gift is too small for you. We bought it on our trip to Vancouver last month—see enclosed for details' – what does _that _mean?"

"Something's fallen out of it," Numair said, stooping to retrieve it. "Another card, it appears. Let's see."

He slit open the top, opened the enclosure, and began to laugh. "Now we know what they were doing in Vancouver," he said.

"What is it?" Daine asked, trying to peer around his arm.

Numair handed it over with a grin: "It's a wedding announcement."

She read it, and felt her face crease into a grin. "A lot's changed since we went on that holiday, hasn't it?" she reflected.

"Mmm," Numair agreed, holding her close and kissing the top of her head. "It must have been the altitude."


End file.
